


Up with the lark, to bed with the wren

by emmadelosnardos



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/pseuds/emmadelosnardos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place during the during "Eagle Day", "Fifty Ships", and "Among the Few." My question is: how do Sam and Foyle handle their increasing attraction to each other, in light of Foyle's professionalism and Sam's inexperience?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place at the end of the first season of "Foyle's War," during and after the episode "Eagle Day." This episode has a theme running through it of the changes in sexual morals that were beginning to take place during the war. Sam's father, for instance, mentions the scandalous tales he has heard from his parishioners of their unmarried daughters getting pregnant while serving in the female forces. My question is: how do Sam and Foyle handle their increasing attraction to each other, in light of Foyle's professionalism and Sam's inexperience? I'm writing this fanfic as if this episode were really all about Foyle and Sam's burgeoning relationship, expanding on a few hints that are already there.

Sam thought long and hard about how she would present her case to her father. She knew that he was coming to Hastings to try to bring her home, and she was determined to present a strong case for herself, regardless of the outcome. For days, she created lists in her head of reasons that she thought were strong enough to compel her father to change his mind.  _I'm working for the war cause, even if I'm not caring for soldiers or growing vegetables. Without the police, in times of war, criminals can get away with murder._ Hadn't she already seen how willing people were to commit crimes when they thought that the Germans would invade any day? _The police are the bastion of the moral order,_  she thought.  _My virtue is safer working for them than for anyone else._ If only her father could meet Mr. Foyle! Then he would see what kind of man she worked for – not the kind of man who would take advantage of his young driver's innocence, though Sam found herself wishing that he  _would_ pay a little more attention to her overtures of friendship. That was all she wanted, she told herself firmly: friendship with Mr. Foyle, Detective Chief Superintendent.

Sam found herself ever on the lookout for opportunities to get to know him better. It had become a game, of sorts, between the two of them, she pushing to see how much he would give in before he chided her or ignored her. Not long ago she had managed to invite herself to dinner with her boss, somehow securing a Italian meal in a fancy restaurant. They could have been father and daughter, or husband and wife, dining there that evening. Not for the first time around Foyle, Sam felt quite grown-up - a woman sharing an evening with a man, as she had long wanted to do. She was pleased that Mr. Foyle was that man, for there were few grown men that she had felt so comfortable around, even before she had started to work for the W.T.C.

As he seated them, the restaurant owner had shared a look with Mr. Foyle that Sam could only have described as "knowing." But what did it really mean? What could he know about them? Sam rather liked to think that other men might admire or envy Mr. Foyle for having such a young and pretty woman as his companion. If he hadn't stopped her from wrangling for his time before now, she concluded that, at some level, Mr. Foyle actually  _liked_ her questions and her company.

Sam remembered, with some guilt, the look on Mr. Foyle's face when she had accepted a date with Tony not seconds after they had left the restaurant together. She still didn't know why she had done that. Part of her felt sorry for the young man, who was so earnest and likeable. And perhaps another part of her felt interested to know what Foyle's reaction would be to seeing another man pay attention to her. It was evidence that she was attractive to men, even if Mr. Foyle insisted on treating her like any other employee. But even after going on a few dates with Tony—awkward affairs where she felt as if she were merely playing at being a woman—she had concluded that she felt much more comfortable, more  _alive_ , even, in her boss's company. Although it had been difficult to do so after the death of Tony's father, she had finally told him that she could only write to him as a friend, not as his girl. Tony was disappointed, showing faint tears in his eyes, as Sam broke the news to him. She was disappointed, too, in herself, for having let become so serious a flirtation that was started to merely provoke her boss's reaction.

All that, and now to think that she might have to leave Hastings and never work with Foyle again!

* * *

For his part, Mr. Foyle had a headache thinking about the trouble it would take to find someone to fill Sam's shoes. He tried to tell himself that it was the bureaucratic mess that he dreaded, not her absence, but he quickly chided himself for that bit of naive rationalization. No, he would miss Sam because she was Sam, his driver and, despite himself, a now dear companion. She had a quick mind, eager to learn and to please, even if she sometimes went a bit too far in involving herself in a case. Obviously, she was intelligent and he didn't doubt that she would be well-suited for a career in the police if she hadn't been female. It was a pity that his country had only now begun to women the opportunity to work, he thought. Of course, teaching and nursing and caring for children had always been jobs available to women, but Foyle remembered how his own Rosalind had balked at the idea of becoming an art teacher, left with few other options. She had told him, when they were married, that she wanted a small family, the better to pursue her painting. After Andrew was born, they were always careful to use johnnies, so she wouldn't get pregnant again. Foyle didn't like the blasted things, but he conceded that they were preferable to having a child that Rosalind didn't want. He had sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have a larger family—he would have liked daughters as well as a son—but Andrew had turned out to be quite the handful by himself.

The detective looked over the files spread over his desk. How had he gotten from solving the problem of his driver's departure, to thinking about Rosalind and babies? It had been a long time since he had dared to think about his dream of having more children one day. Just the night before, when he and Andrew shared a drink in the living room, his son had asked him if he had ever thought about getting married again. They had been talking about Anne, the female sergeant that Andrew had met at his R.A.F. post. He had expressed a wish to send her flowers, lamenting that her aunt already owned a florist shop and they would probably not be appreciated by her. Foyle had responded, "I don't think there's any such thing as a girl who can't stand the sight of flowers, is there?" _What would Sam say if he ever presented **her**  with flowers? _he wondered briefly before stifling that fantasy.  _As if I could ever get away with doing that. She wants a young man, like Carlo's son, or Milner, if he weren't still hung up on his wife. Not an old man like me. And being her boss certainly wouldn't help my cause any._ But still, Foyle's mind lingered on the image of Sam accepting a bouquet of flowers from him. Perhaps he'd find an occasion to bring her flowers, after all-or invent some such reason. He would like to see the surprise and delight in her face. Flowers were one luxury that rationing had not yet done away with; they still grew along every country lane.

Christopher Foyle played with the buttons on his waistcoat as he twirled his whisky with his other hand. Part of him liked these conversations with Andrew, where his son confided his latest infatuations to his father, while another part of him felt like an old man in comparison to his son's exuberant chasing of women. To be sure, if Andrew was like most young men, then he was probably apt to talk a lot but see little action where the girls were concerned. Foyle, in contrast, preferred to play down his relations with women when chatting with his son; better to hint at much and reveal little. It was none of the boy's business, in any case.

"Aren't there times when you think of..." Andrew had started, trailing off his sentence. His father knew what he was getting at but would not give his son the satisfaction of answering his subtle question.

"Think of what?" Foyle asked, pointedly, the way he did when Sam asked him a question he didn't want to answer, forcing the other to repeat the question and feel foolish in comparison.

"Well, you know, marrying again," Andrew said, looking down at his drink. He had finally said it outright to his father.  _You're a handsome, clever guy, Dad,_  he thought.  _And kind, too, though not many people know that about you. You don't know how many women would be happy to have you._

"Here we go," Foyle said, reaching for his drink, anticipating that his son wasn't going to stop there. Sure enough, Andrew pressed on:

"Is there somebody else?"  _What, did his son actually believe that he had stopped thinking about women since his wife had died?_ It had been a few years since Foyle had sought out female companionship, but he wasn't going to tell his son about the affairs that he had had since becoming a widow. Better not to scare the young man outright with his father's confidences.

"What, do you think I'd tell you?" Foyle asked, peeved. There  _was_ somebody else now, and Andrew had hit upon it - but he was definitely not going to mention his young driver to Andrew. Likely enough they would meet soon anyway and Andrew might infer what he would. He would already know, for example, that his father would never stand to have anyone around him whom he didn't like. And as soon as Andrew found out that Sam had been driving his father around for four months, he'd surely guess the soft spot that Foyle had for her. But until then, Foyle preferred to keep secret his relations with the gentler sex.

"Come on, Dad, it's been eight years!" Andrew responded.

"Andrew, I don't really think that this is quite the right time for this, you know." He stood up, signaling the end of the conversation to his son. He had meant to say that he didn't feel that  _any_ time was the right time to be discussing his love life with his son. But Andrew seemed to deliberately misinterpret his meaning.

"I don't see that the war makes any difference," Andrew protested. "Life still goes on!"

"Well, I certainly hope so," Foyle said noncommittally, keeping his voice even as he picked up a paper from his desk.  _Of course life went on! What did his son think, that he was still mourning Rosalind?_ Maybe Foyle  _had_ had some difficulty "moving on," as people said, after his wife's death. His love affairs since then had been brief and mostly forgettable. But then he had been assigned Samantha Stewart as his driver, and he quite rapidly and satisfactorily came crashing back to the present. Sometime, in the days between May and August in that year, he had begun to fall in love with her. He couldn't identify the exact moment - indeed, he had not even admitted this to himself, until this very minute, standing there with Andrew looking at him, waiting for his father to protest or answer. Foyle parried the conversation as only he knew how to do, changing the subject and thereby dismissing his son: "What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

* * *

Sam's conversation with her father took place over supper at the Royal Victoria, the sort of old-fashioned establishment where men like Reverend Stewart felt comfortable meeting their grown-up daughters. He was more aware than ever, as he saw Sam walk through the room towards him, of how striking a woman she had become.  _All the more reason to act now and get her to leave this post,_ he told himself.

"How's mother?" Sam asked, looking around.

"Much the same. She sends you her love. She worries about you. We  _both_ do."

"Well, I'm all right. It's only Hastings. It's not as if it's the other side of the world."

"Yeah, well, even so. We hear so much about young women these days, in uniform, in the forces." Sam looked uncomfortable. "Of course, I know we're out of touch. Lyminster's such a quiet place. But even if half of what we hear is true...young women in the W.A.A.F., in the A.T.S., in the Navy!"

"Up with the lark, in bed with a wren, that what they say," Sam blurted out, then mentally chided herself. Whatever had possessed her to say  _that_ particular joke? It was what they said about the "WReNS," the Women's Royal Naval Service, but Sam should have known better than to repeat that ribald joke to her father. Obviously her father already had his mind on people going to bed with one another, and then she had to up and put his fear into words. He'd never let her stay if he thought she was like that. An awkward silence lay between them. "I'm sorry, Dad, it's just a joke."

"That's my point, Samantha. I don't think it is a joke. I meet a great many parents whose daughters have gotten into  _dif-fi-cul-ties_. It's my job to offer them pastoral care. And I have to say that it's my opinion that any sort of morality has been shot to pieces by this dreadful war. I read some of the bulletins put out by the Association for Moral Hygiene, for example, and quite frankly, I'm appalled!"

"Yes, but you needn't worry about  _me_. There's no chance of  _me_ getting P.W.P!"

"I'm sorry?" her father asked.

"Pregnant without permission," Sam explained.  _Damn it_ , she thought.  _Just the sort of talk I was supposed to avoid! What will he think of me now?_ She looked up at her father, hoping he'd appreciate her humor. "Anyway, I'm not in the Forces. You should be grateful they moved me to the police. It's not the same thing at all."  _I'm stuck driving around a widower who is still in love with his dearly departed and I work with a sergeant who desperately wants his wife to fall back in love with him. There's not much chance there, I think, of my getting "P.W.P."_

"Yes, I know they moved you. In fact, that's what made it easier for your mother and me to come to our decision."

"What decision?"

"I'm here, Samantha, because I want you to come home."

"What?" She couldn't believe it.

"Immediately. Your mother still isn't well, we both need you, we'd feel more comfortable knowing where you are."

"But I can't," Samantha replied with determination. She wasn't going to let her father make all of her decisions for her.

"It would be different if you were doing something  _important_  for the war effort. That's how you talked us into letting you go in the first place. But what  _is_  this job of yours? Driving a policeman round the country? Getting involved in  _murders_? And Lord knows what else!"

"Mr. Foyle needs me," Sam said calmly.  _At least_ , she thought,  _I_ _ **hope**_ _he needs me. One can never really tell what Mr. Foyle is thinking, or if that man has any needs at all._ "And I do  _more_ than drive him! You don't understand," she said, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Samantha, my mind is made up. I want you to  _come_ _ **home**_."

She could not explain to her father what it meant to her to be involved in something as important and interesting as police work. Even when considering the other forces she might have gone in to, Sam couldn't imagine anything more fascinating than driving Mr. Foyle around the countryside, chasing down murderers and standing by as he interrogated suspects. Of course, it hadn't all been a "lark," either - the death of that boy, Billy, for example, had hit Sam hard. She remembered how Mr. Foyle had firmly instructed her to leave the shed where the boy's body was. He had averted his glance from her as she stood by the side of the house, crying profusely. He had not wanted to embarrass her any further, and she appreciated this small kindness.

It was the moments like these - the trust between the two of them, the thoughtfulness from him, the challenge of learning more about him - that she was reluctant to give up. And there was certainly no chance of her coming out pregnant from  _this_  line of work! It almost made Sam blush when she thought of her boss as a man who might potentially get her pregnant, as her father seemed to view him.  _But Mr. Foyle is not like that at all_ , she thought.  _He is a true gentleman, probably one of the few left. Besides, it's just a silly little infatuation on my part, the way that I feel towards my boss. If anything,_ _ **I**_ _would have to be the one to speak to him first; even if he could feel the same way about me, he would never dare to approach an employee._ A glimmer came into Samantha's eye.  _Maybe he wouldn't think about me on his own, but who's to say I can't have a little game of making him respond back to me?_

* * *

Back at his office, Christopher Foyle almost chuckled as he remembered Andrew's reaction to learning that his driver was not only female, but young and pretty to boot. Upon hearing Sam's knock on the door the morning after Andrew's arrival, he had instructed his son to open it, knowing that a surprise would be in store.

Indeed, Andrew  _had_  been surprised. Foyle had overheard him saying "He never told me he had a - well - um, a girl. Especially such a pretty one."

Had Andrew thought that his father was keeping this information from him? In a sense, he  _was_ keeping it secret, the detective mused. It wouldn't do for Andrew to be poking into his father's professional - or personal - life. And it never hurt to take Andrew down a notch, this young know-it-all who couldn't help but think that every woman he met would fall in love with him.

But Sam was clearly not impressed by Andrew, and Foyle was amused by her response to him: "I see you don't hold back. You must have been well-trained by the R.A.F." She knew the reputation of the R.A.F pilots-those young, foolhardy men who were destined to fly high and fall fast - a new cohort of Dedalus and Icarus for this second Great War. How many would get shot down over Europe in the months and years to come?

But while Sam refused to accept the war as an excuse for improper behavior from pilots, Foyle preferred not to think about the danger his son would soon be in. He recognized the urge, common among young men about to be deployed, to flirt with everything in a skirt and to grab pleasure where they could. Freud would have called it "the use of Eros in the service of repression of the fear of death," or some such thing. Freud's famous exile to London a few years ago, and his subsequent death during the last year, had kept the psychoanalyst's work in the public eye. Foyle admitted to enjoying the theories that the Viennese doctor had put out, but more than the theories, he admired the man's eye for detail and his intimate understanding of his patients.  _If only Freud had been a detective_ , he had thought more than once.  _Then we would have seen a veritable revolution in crime-solving._

"Have you met many pilots?" Andrew asked Sam.

"No," Sam said. "I tend to mix more with policeman." In the other room, putting on his tie, Foyle could hear everything. "Just as well, really."  _Ha!_ Foyle thought.  _Sam preferred policemen to pilots! One point for him!_

"Look, I didn't mean to offend you. We've got plenty of W.A.A.F. drivers. I just didn't expect to meet one driving my dad." Even from the other room, Foyle could see how Andrew looked up and down Sam's uniform with an approving glance. This seemed to annoy her even more.

"Well, I was hoping to cook and knit balaclavas for His Majesty's forces," she said sarcastically, as Foyle came into the doorway, making the last adjustments to his tie. "But here I am."

Foyle spoke: "You two have met, then." Sam answered "Yes," Andrew looked down sheepishly, realizing that his father had overheard the entire conversation, including his unsought praise of Sam's looks. It was just like his father to not tell him the most important detail about his new assignment in Hastings, and let Andrew find out the hard way that his father was spending his days with a girl pretty enough to be a movie star! Foyle had given the smallest of smiles to both of them, satisfied that his relations with women would continue to be a mystery to his high-flying son.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Foyle arrived early for his meeting with Reverend Stewart at the Royal Victoria Hotel. Samantha had told him that her father wanted to talk to him about her work, but he presumed that the real reason for the meeting was that the vicar wanted to make sure that his daughter's boss wasn't the kind of man who would sully her reputation. Foyle, who so often found himself on the other side of an interrogation, thought that he was prepared for a subtle, yet thorough, inquiry from the vicar. What he had not anticipated, however, was that the vicar would be as ignorant as he was of the purpose of the meeting.

"You wanted to see me about your daughter, Mr. Stewart?" Foyle asked, greeting the other man.

"It was Samantha who wanted me to talk to  _you_ , Mr. Foyle. I really have nothing to say," the vicar responded. Foyle looked confused, just for an instant.  _We were set up!,_  he thought.  _Damn clever girl!_

He composed himself before the vicar.

"Well, I've come over here because Samantha hoped I might be able to change your mind, but if I'm wasting your time—"

"No," Rev. Stewart interrupted. "Sorry, I spoke rather rudely just now. Please, sit down."

Even as Foyle carried on a conversation with Sam's father, agreeing with him that domestic crime-solving seemed unimportant compared with the war effort, he kept thinking back to Samantha herself. He felt a mixture of annoyance and admiration towards her: annoyance, because she had lied to him about the purpose of the meeting, and admiration, because she had managed the both of them so well, to get them together in the same room.  _That woman will make a capital detective one day,_ he thought.  _If only her father lets her stay on with me._

Now the vicar was saying something about Sam taking a liking to her work with him. Foyle hoped that the liking had to do with something more than the regular satisfactions of solving crimes and tramping around town. He wanted to let her father know that her help was valued, but that he had no personal stake in having her stay—which wasn't true, of course, but he thought that it would be easier for the vicar to accept his daughter working for him if he believed that it was beyond either of their control. Masterfully, Foyle turned the conversation to the inconveniences of wartime assignments, his own desire to be doing something more important than detective work, and, finally, to the mention of his own son's service. He caught the other man's attention when he mentioned that Andrew was a pilot in the R.A.F. Despite what men like the vicar thought of women in the forces, they had no end of admiration for the young men who served.

The conversation ended with the two on good terms, as one father speaking to another, but Foyle felt deceitful nonetheless. His true feelings towards Sam were far from those of a father, though he was determined that neither she nor her own father would ever learn of that. After so many years alone, the opportunity to spend his days besides a vibrant young woman was satisfaction enough. He had come to look forward to her arrival in the morning, to see her open face and hear her bright chatter as she discussed the latest war news with him or gave him her opinion about a case. He secretly stole glances at her as she drove, admiring the physicality of her driving, the way her arms held the steering wheel or how she bowed her head as she looked down to shift the gears. There in the small cabin of the car, he was closer to her than he would ever be outside of the Wolesley; in the office, or across from each other at dinner, there would always be more space between the two of them. But next to Sam in the car, Foyle could smell the roses of her soap and notice the soft white down at the base of her neck. He valued those moments more than she would ever know, and he hoped that her father would change his mind and let her stay.

* * *

It was a split-second decision that Sam made, to follow Alistair Graeme into the pub and ferret out his identity. She was thrilled that Foyle agreed to her half-baked plan, but couldn't help but wonder why he had assented. Could it be that he trusted her to do a good job? She had just said how much she was going to miss this kind of work, the fun of the chase. And she had also admitted to him that she had enjoyed working with  _him_ , in particular. Could it be that he wanted to give her the chance for one last hurrah, while she was still working for the police?

They had been sitting together in the Wolesley, waiting for Alistair Graeme to leave his house.

"Why don't we just go in?" Sam asked.

"Maybe he hasn't done anything," Foyle replied. "And if I was to ask him about Andrew, he wouldn't tell me anyway, and why should he?"

"Well, we could follow him back to where he's based," Sam suggested. She loved following suspects in the car. But Graeme was no ordinary suspect; he was an R.A.F. officer, and this was no ordinary case, but a very personal matter: finding Andrew. But Foyle appreciated his driver's enthusiasm and hoped that she would get the opportunity to confront Graeme.

"We'd get arrested as spies," he said ruefully, turning to smile at Sam.

"I'm going to miss all this," she said, keeping her face forward so that he wouldn't see her expression.

"Are you?" Foyle asked, genuinely curious as to what she would say.

"I've enjoyed working with you, Sir," Samantha said, formally. She hoped that her voice didn't betray her emotion. If she weren't about to leave, she didn't think that she ever would have dared to say this to Foyle. But she also felt some regret at how she had hassled him from time to time. "I'm sorry I've been—" she started, then grew silent.

"Been what?" Foyle asked. He wouldn't let her stop there; this conversation was too interesting to him. What could she be sorry for? That she had asked him too many questions? That she had invited herself places where she shouldn't have gone? That she had looked at him a bit too closely on occasion? That she had made him fall in love with her? Foyle was not sorry for any of this.

Sam said, " _You_  know," swallowing hard and looking at him from the corner of her eyes.

"Yeah," Foyle said. "No, you've been fine, Sam."  _More than fine,_  he thought.  _I couldn't have asked for a better driver or a finer companion._ She blushed at his compliment. Foyle wasn't one to flatter needlessly.

Graeme came out of his house, looked briefly at the car, and strode down the street. "Is that him there?" Sam asked.

"Could be," Foyle said. "Looks like it. Shall we go?" Sam started the motor and they followed the man up the street, keeping a good distance back.

"You wait here," Foyle said, once they saw Graeme enter the pub.

"Sir," Sam dared. "Why don't you let me do it?" Foyle gave her a hard stare. She was impressive, this one. "Isn't there more chance he'd talk to a girl?" she asked. "If we can catch him alone, having a drink, he might give me a clue." She looked him straight in the eyes.

"All right," Foyle assented. "Be careful." He'd never see her again if her father heard about this one. But he was curious to see what she would do. He smiled to himself as he watched her leave the car.

* * *

The meeting in the pub was a disaster, as far as Sam was concerned. Although she could say that she genuinely enjoyed the company of most men, Graeme made her squeamish. The way he pushed himself close to her as he offered to buy her a drink, the lascivious look in his eyes as he asked her which corps she worked for, his obvious pleasure at her discomfort—all of this made her very uneasy. And then, the way that he found her out, the sinister words he whispered in her ear:

"You know, my dear, when a good-looking, well-developed young girl like you comes into a bar on her own, that's one thing. But when she starts asking questions—name, rank, serial number—that's when a chap has to start asking himself, 'What's her game?' Especially when that girl seems to have deliberately followed him in." He leaned close to her, his breath smelling of old smoke.

"I did no such thing!" Sam protested.

"I'm sure you didn't," he purred. "But that's a loose tongue you have. A  _very_  loose tongue. And I think you should be careful what you do with it." She didn't like the implications behind his tone. She would tell Foyle about this later—about  _all_  of it. Perhaps it would provide some important information about Graeme's character. "So," he continued, "It was  _very_  nice to meet you, and I hope you enjoyed the drink, but I think it's time you were on your way."

She looked away from him and was not prepared for what he did next. He reached behind her and quite roughly and painfully grabbed her between the legs, putting his hand where no stranger should have touched. She was outraged.  _How dare he!_ she thought, giving out a small shriek before walking away to leave the pub.  _What an insolent, disgusting man! I hope Foyle's son has nothing to do with him._

Sam came back to the car where Foyle was waiting for her. He could tell by the expression on her face that things had not gone well. "What happened?" he asked.

Sam shook her head. "I didn't get anything out of him, Sir," she said, chagrinned. "He rumbled me straight away." She looked distressed and Foyle suspected that there was more to her story.

"What is it?" he asked. "You all right?" His driver looked pale.

"Actually, he pinched me," she explained, somewhat embarrassed. Better to say it was a pinch, that didn't sound as bad as the violent way he had forced his hand between her legs and pulled upwards. She didn't want Foyle to know the whole of it; he might wonder at what she had been doing to provoke that reaction.

"He did  _what_?" Foyle asked, shocked.  _I shouldn't have let her go in there by herself,_ he thought.  _She convinces me so easily that I let her do exactly what she wants—but this was my mistake._

" _You_  know," she said significantly. Then, forgetting her embarrassment, she emphatically complained: "He pinched me quite hard! It really _hurt_!" He wanted to laugh but he knew that he shouldn't. This was a serious matter.

"I'm going to have a word with him," he said. Foyle moved to open the car door.  _There's a reason these kinds of people are our suspects,_ he thought.  _We cannot ever forget that we're dealing with unsavory characters. But I'll have a word with him, even if it means that he'll keep mum about Andrew. Hang Andrew anyway! He's a grown man. He should have learned to solve his own problems by now._

"No, no," Sam said, shaking her head. She was touched that Foyle wanted to defend her honor, but she reminded herself that it would ruin the case if they were to confront Graeme outright. "It will only confirm his suspicions," she said. "Maybe Dad was right." Foyle looked concerned. "Perhaps I ought to write to the Association for Moral Hygiene," she joked lightly.

Sam started up the car again as Foyle pondered what she had said. If Graeme had treated her so coarsely, what else might the officer be willing to do? His thoughts wandered to the story that Andrew had told him, about the female plotter who had gone missing, whom no one was allowed to talk about. What there a connection between her and Graeme? All of this was getting so complicated: Andrew, Graeme, Anne, the Smith murder, now Sam. He needed time to think things over. Thank God for Sam's driving; that would give him the time to calm down and work out the case—or cases, as it was becoming apparent that there were several mysteries to solve here.

* * *

Sam's first attempt at spy-work left her rather discouraged. She was quieter than usual for the rest of the day, and made no motion to hang around the station or delay Foyle's good-night, as she usually did. Instead, as the car climbed up the hill to Foyle's house shortly after six, Sam began to say a rather formal good-bye to him. When she stopped the engine to let him out, though, he stayed in his seat.

"Would you like to come in for a minute, Sam?" he asked. He had never invited her inside his house before, except for the few minutes she spent in the foyer when she picked him up in the morning. "Unless something has changed, I don't expect we'll see Andrew here tonight. And I have the feeling that there's more to say about what happened at the pub this afternoon. Besides," he said, smiling, "you look like you could use a stiff drink." Sam looked down at her hands, blushing, avoiding his eyes.

"Please, Sir," she said. "I am all right." She swallowed hard.

"I know you are, Sam. But won't you come in for a drink anyway? Humor me for once," he said, then: "I promise I won't pinch you." He winked at her and Sam almost choked, and then put her hand against her mouth to hide her smile.

"Fine," she said, opening her door. "I'd much rather share a drink with you, anyway, than with that ratty R.A.F officer." Foyle felt his pulse rise as he watched her walk round the car and walk up his stairs, waiting for him to bring the keys and let her in.

Foyle brought her to his study, the same room where he and Andrew had chatted just a few nights before. She looked around at the books and the writing desk, wondering if it was Foyle or his late wife who had decorated the space. She had already noticed Rosalind's paintings, hanging in all the rooms of the house, on another occasion. But this room seemed to lack the feminine touch. It had probably always been Foyle's own room, the place where he could bring his colleagues or sit back and read the newspaper. It was not a woman's room.

It was not a woman's room, and yet Foyle did his best to make Sam feel at home, pulling out a chair for her to sit on and offering her a scotch. She took off her hat and placed it on the desk, then sat and folded her hands primly on her lap while Foyle poured them each a drink. He went into the kitchen to retrieve some ice, then came back and handed her the glass. He sat down across from Sam, looking straight at her.

"So, Sam, now that you've had your first taste of spying-" he started. But Sam interrupted him.

"It wasn't what you think, Sir," she said, looking away.

"What exactly do you mean?" he asked her pointedly. "What do you imagine I was thinking about it?"

"You might think that I was being too brazen—that I was trying to seduce the man. But I wasn't! I know spies don't do that kind of thing except in books. I was just talking to him, trying to sound interested and impressed, but nothing more. I hardly knew what to say to him. But he was simply dreadful. The way he looked me up and down, the way he leaned in close to me, and then when he pinched me!—frankly, Mr. Foyle, he disgusted me."

"That is precisely what I wanted us to talk about, Samantha," he said seriously. "I should not have let you go in there by yourself. I should have known better. You are not a detective-yet." She looked up, a bit hurt. "Don't feel bad about it, Sam, I'm just stating the truth. You can't be more than you already are." He sighed and took a sip of his drink. She thought he might be disappointed in her, but she was also interested to hear what he would say next. "One thing you'll learn, as we do more of this work together, is that oftentimes the people we are investigating are just the kind of people you would want to stay far away from in ordinary circumstances. There's a reason that men like Alistair Graeme make it onto a list of suspects. Plenty of times they are innocent of any real crime, but there are lots of bad deeds that can't be prosecuted." He looked at her pointedly.

"I wish we could!" Sam said eagerly. "I'd lock that man up in an instant for a moral misdemeanor. I wasn't entirely joking when I said that I would report him to the Association for Moral Hygiene." She crossed her ankles and sat back in her chair, relishing the feel of the whisky on her tongue. It had been a good idea of Foyle's to have a drink together. She didn't know if she would ever have another opportunity. And it was kind of him, as well, to be concerned about her after the incident in the pub. She noted these kindnesses of his, stored them up like secret treasures to mull over when she was by herself.

"So it looks like we have learned something about Alistair Graeme, after all," Foyle remarked. "We learned, for example, that he likes young women." He raised his eyebrow at her.

"That may not be a discriminating feature, Mr. Foyle," Sam pointed out. He smiled at her comment.

"Right you are. But listen: we also learned that he is clever. He knew that we were following him. He is a worthy adversary. And now we know that he is not above intimidating people—I imagine that his pinching you, for example, was not so much about the pleasure of touching you, as it was about showing you who was in command. Alistair Graeme is a sadist. And I'm only sorry that I did not realize this sooner, or I would have never have let you go in there by yourself."

Sam looked at her drink. She felt so many things. After his brief speech, Sam felt grateful for the detective's friendship and for his concern for her. She was touched that he had wanted to protect her once he had found out what had happened to her, and curious about how he viewed her. He had implied that touching her would be a very pleasant thing; had he ever thought as much?

"Sir," Sam ventured, "May I ask you a question?"

"You may." Foyle smiled at her.

If she hadn't already drunk the whisky, she would never have said what she did next.

"What would  _you_  have done, Mr. Foyle, if you had been in a pub and I had come in by myself?"

"I know you already, Sam," Foyle said, a bit patronizingly, "so it's hardly the same thing."

"But let's say you  _didn't_  know me. What would you do if you were there by yourself, and then I came in?"  _Oh, God,_  he thought to himself, _Whatever possessed her to ask this particular question? And how am I supposed to answer this without getting in trouble?_

"I suppose I would notice that—notice that a young woman had come in, and wonder what she was doing there. I'm a detective, after all." He smiled tightly.

"Is that all?" Sam asked.

Foyle cleared his throat and said, matter-of-factly, "Despite your experience today, Sam, I can assure you that not all men of my generation feel the need to physically accost young ladies in uniform." He laughed wryly. "I hope I have never done anything to indicate otherwise."

"No, no," Sam assured him. "I didn't mean that at all."

"Then what  _did_  you mean?" he asked directly. Sam looked away from his stare. He examined her face, noticing the look of guilt that had spread across her features.

Sam took a deep breath before answering.

"I wanted to know—if you had ever considered—I mean—How do I say it? Have you ever considered what you would do if you ran into me at a pub?"

Foyle smiled. "Why would I need to consider that?" he asked her back.

"Well," Sam stumbled, "you invited me here, and I wondered—in other circumstances—if you would buy me a drink."

"Ah, Sam," he said rather condescendingly, "You want to know what I think of you, is that it?"

"Yes, Sir. In a word."

"While I would never turn down the opportunity to have a drink with a young woman—" here he held his glass up to her—"inviting strangers to a drink is not something I am accustomed to doing."

"Too bad," Sam said. "I would have liked an invitation!" She smiled at him and he smiled back, enchanted by her frankness and her youth.

"You should know, that while I might treat you to supper—" he looked at her meaningfully, remembering the night when she invited herself to Carlo's—"it wouldn't be professional to meet my driver at a pub."

"And so you invite me  _here_ instead, Mr. Foyle?" Sam said, coyly. He was caught.

"This is different."  _If anything,_ he thought, _it is worse. Imagine what her father would do if he saw her here with me, drinking my best whisky and putting her feet up on my ottoman. She probably doesn't even know that I can see her legs, and I now know that she wears knee-high stockings and no garters._ He smiled at his newfound knowledge.

"How so?" Sam asked him.

"You're here as a guest in my home," he said. Sam readjusted her skirt, hiding her knees again. Foyle felt a twinge of disappointment.

"Well, I don't see as how there is much difference between us having a drink at a pub and having a drink here together, but perhaps what you mean is that as long as we're here, no one will see us together. Is that it?" Sam closed her eyes slightly, liking the excitement of the word play and the whisky, and most of all the proximity to Foyle. If Graeme had made her feel dirty and low, around Foyle she felt like a woman. Not a lady, not like some fragile thing that he had to protect, but like a  _woman_ , like someone who could be moved by him _._  She wanted him to treat her like a companion, to confide in her, to trust her. Even though she knew that it was poor manners, she could hardly keep her eyes from him, wondering what he was thinking about her and when he would get around to asking her to leave.

For his part, Foyle was in quite the predicament. It had been a long time since he had spent an evening with a young woman, but even with his limited experience he could tell when someone was interested in him. Samantha Stewart, while not being outright seductive, was certainly coy. And this was what had Foyle so tangled up: if he responded to her subtle invitation to get to know her better, then he would be no better than Graeme. Foyle did not care for the image of himself as a licentious employer; he had always been strictly above board in his dealings with his subordinates. He reminded himself that this situation was entirely different: for one, in contrast to the others under his command, Samantha Stewart was most certainly  _not_  a man; for another, she wasn't likely to be his driver for much longer, if her father had anything to say about it.  _How ironic it would be if she leaves because her father is suspicious of me, and I won't even have had the pleasure of matching up to my reputation._

Just as Sam had been direct with him, he decided to be direct with her. This was a tactic that often was useful in a police interrogation, and perhaps it would help him to navigate the current situation. He took a deep breath and proceeded.


	3. Chapter 3

He took a deep breath and proceeded.

"I find myself in a bit of a bind, Samantha," he said quietly, rolling the ice around in his glass.

"How so?" she asked.

"On the one hand, I spoke with your father not long ago and assured him that you would be safe working for me. Meaning, of course, that he had nothing to worry about as far as your moral reputation was concerned." Foyle stood up and took a step towards her. "But here I am with you tonight, and I cannot figure out what you want from me. I ask myself, 'What is a pretty young woman like Samantha doing, flirting with me over a drink?' For you  _are_  a bit of a flirt," he said, as she was about to protest. He put his hands up and said, "Don't deny it." Foyle took a step over to his desk and began to play with a piece of paper that he had left there before continuing.

"And just now we were talking about men like Graeme, men who like to take advantage of young women. Isn't that right?"

Sam nodded.

"And so I have to ask myself:  _what does Samantha Stewart want from me?_  Does she see me as a Graeme? Inviting her here to my home in order to have my way with her? Or does she see me as her boss, as a man old enough to be her father? Or would she have me be something else?" He turned and looked pointedly at her. Her breath caught in her throat.  _He is brilliant!,_  she thought, admiring the way he had turned her own questions back on her. She thought a moment before answering, wondering how to phrase what she was about to say. Still seated, she spoke.

"I don't know how much longer you are going to be my boss, Mr. Foyle, and I can assure you that I in no way meant to draw any comparison between yourself and Mr. Graeme."

"And?" Foyle asked. "Is there something else?" He hoped that she could not hear how loudly his heart was beating, nor the sweat that he noticed had started to form across his forehead. He hadn't felt this nervous during an interrogation since his early days in the police force.

"Yes," she said, daring to look up at him. He turned away from her, bringing one hand to his face, moved to silence for a moment.

"Good God," he said, glancing down at her. "Sam-"

She stood up and interrupted him. "Sir, I will leave right now if you want me to. But I want you to know that I do think sometimes that there might be something more between the two of us, if you were ever to want it." He turned his head to look back at her, stunned at her candor, then looked away.

"You must know that there is a great distance between what a man wants and what a man can have, Samantha," he said quietly.

"Not so," she countered. "I am right here in front of you! Why won't you look at me?  _I_ want  _you_. There! I've said it. What is the obstacle?"

Foyle grew angry. Who did she think she was, to toy with him in this way? When he spoke, his voice was heated.

"You know very well what the obstacles are. I don't have to tell you that I'm your boss, and I'm at least twenty years older than you are."

"So you're saying that, under other circumstances…?"

"Yes, under other circumstances, perhaps—"

"Then I resign, Sir," she said. "Effective immediately."

"That joke only works once, Sam," Foyle said, laughing despite himself. "Besides," he said, stepping towards her and pulling her to him, "Even if you resign, I'm  _still_  old enough to be your father." He put his hands on her upper arms and held her eyes with his for a long minute. "Are you sure, Sam?" he asked.

"Well, I'd rather not lose my position as your driver, but given that that's the probable outcome anyway, what's the harm in resigning early?" She looked back at him, scarcely believing that he was so close to her. She could feel the heat of his hands through her sleeves. It felt nothing like being next to Tony, nor any of the other boys that she had gone out with in the last few years. She felt a deep pull towards him, a murmuring in her chest that signaled her growing attraction.

Foyle asked her again: "Are you sure about this?" She nodded, transfixed by his stare. Keeping her gaze, he kissed her, softly, on her lips, then pulled back to examine her expression.

"That's very nice, Sir," she said. "And I'm still sure about it."

"Can't I persuade you to call me by Christopher?" he asked quietly, bringing her face close to his again for another kiss. She gasped as he kissed her more urgently this time, applying a firm pressure to her mouth. "Is it terribly wrong of me to like this, Sam?" he asked her. "Is it wrong of me to want to kiss you again?"

"No," she whispered. "I wish you wouldn't stop."

"I won't stop if you don't want me to," he said, drawing her even closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her torso and rested his hands at the base of her back, securing her tight next to him. Sam closed her eyes, ecstatic, enjoying his kisses.

She had thought about kissing him so many times before, in those vacant hours when all she had to do was wait for him in the car, and she could let her imagination wander. Lately, she had not been able to get him out of her mind. She had wondered what kind of lover he would be—not that she had much experience with lovers, she thought ruefully, but she certainly did have preferences. She liked mature, trim men, like Foyle. She had always been one to fall in love with her male teachers or with the older movie stars; young men were too easy to read, too transparent in their desires. Their eagerness to bed her she also found troubling, and this tendency of theirs had only seemed to increase as the war loomed closer. A virgin still, but not totally innocent of the delight that could be had from her body, Sam had thought that she would like an older man best, someone who would teach her, slowly and deliberately, how to make love. She imagined that Foyle would be this kind of lover, considerate and mannerly, restrained yet passionate. It made her thrill to imagine how he might undress her, taking his time with her buttons and ties, lavishing attention on her small breasts.

Now, under her uniform, she could feel her nipples harden as Foyle pressed her against his chest. He continued to kiss her mouth, then moved to kiss her neck, making her gasp as he touched the soft area underneath her chin.

"You must know that you are so beautiful," he told her, admiring the silky feel of her skin under his lips. It overjoyed him to hear her small gasps, knowing that he was responsible for her delight. He moved back up to her mouth, opening it with his tongue as he held her even closer. He felt her go limp suddenly as he moved his tongue against hers, making her cry out. " _This_  is beautiful," he told her. "The way you are, right now." He felt tears behind his eyes as he breathed in deeply.  _What have I done to deserve such luck?_  He thought to himself. _Better not push it, Foyle. Keep your head on straight._  Pulling back from Sam, Foyle steadied himself against the writing desk. She looked at him, willing him to close the distance again. But Foyle knew that he had to stop now, before he let things go too far. No matter what Sam said, no matter how many times she resigned, she was still under his care.

"Please—Sam," he said. "This was—lovely." Wondering what he would say next, she stepped closer, but he kept her at arms' length. "But tomorrow I have to find my son, and I won't be able to do it without a driver."

"I see what you mean, Sir," Sam said, back to treating him like her boss. She knew where he was heading, but she couldn't help but feeling a bit disappointed that he had so quickly moved to assume their prior positions. In her fantasy, he would have invited her to spend the night. But in reality, if she were honest with herself, the idea of sleeping with Mr. Foyle was about as frightening to her as it was enticing. She did not know him—nor herself—well enough for that. And so she was grateful that he had ended things where he had, before she did something she wasn't ready for.

"Right," Foyle said. "So, what do you say, we call it an evening and see each other tomorrow morning, same as always?"

"Same as always, Mr. Foyle," Sam said significantly. Of course, nothing could be the same between the two of them again. She leaned over to kiss him one last time, quickly. His hand on her hip, he led her to the door.

"You've had a large drink, Sam," he said. "I would feel better if you left the car here and came back for it in the morning. Come, I'll walk you home." He threw on his overcoat quickly and opened the door before she could protest. "Come on, Sam."

Just moments before he had been kissing her, but out in the warm night air, in a street that was dark with the black-out, Sam felt as if an impassable breach had developed between the two of them. He walked an arm's length away from her, careful not to reveal their new intimacy to any passerby by taking her hand in his. She felt lonely, as if he had gone somewhere very far away. When they reached her flat, Sam brought out her keys and let herself in. Foyle stayed back, tipping his hat to her as he watched her close the door. He whistled as he let out the breath that he had been holding.  _This woman will be the end of me,_  he thought.  _And I'm a perfectly willing victim._

"Good-night, Sam," he said.

She turned, hoping that he would give her a kiss good-bye, at least. But he stayed on the bottom step.

"Good-night, Mr. F—Christopher," she said. "I'll come by tomorrow bright and early."

"Up with the lark, eh?" he asked jovially.

 _And to bed with the wren,_  she finished in her head, turning to leave him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

After Foyle got back to his house, it took him longer than usual to get ready for bed. He took his time tidying up the study, noticing each small sign that Samantha had been there earlier. There was red lipstick on the edge of her tumbler—he reluctantly washed it off in the kitchen—and he next discovered a half-dozen golden hairs on the armchair where she had sat not long before. He supposed that, if he were to look in the mirror, he might find his face covered with her lipstick, too. Had he walked through Hastings like that?  _That's the least of my concerns,_ Foyle thought.  _There are more important things to worry about._   _I don't know where Andrew is, there's something fishy about Alistair Graeme, we still haven't solved the Smith murder, and now I've taken a step with Sam that I don't think I can—or want to—undo._ He sighed. As much as he knew that he should concentrate on the cases, he found it much pleasanter to think of his driver. She had been so pliant, so eager, when he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. He remembered the taste of her skin, slightly salty, and the smell of her soap. There was the shock of feeling her at last, in his arms, when he had imagined those sensations for so many weeks. But even in his imagination he could not have anticipated that rare combination of innocence and eagerness that Sam exhibited when he had kissed her. The way she had gasped, for instance, when he had kissed her neck— _hadn't she ever let someone kiss her neck before?,_  he wondered, before reminding himself that he knew little about what a young vicar's daughter would have done befre. It excited him to think that he might teach her something new.  _Calm down, Christopher_ , he reminded himself.  _Don't put the cart before the horse. If she's new at this, then you'll need to show even more patience and consideration for her._

Foyle reflected that, for all that she flirted with him, Sam was probably a lot less experienced with men than she had let on. She might know how to get under his skin, metaphorically speaking, but she seemed to have little knowledge of the pleasures of the flesh. This made kissing her all the more enticing to Foyle, for it meant that he might be showing her, for the first time, how to use her body—and what she might do to a man's body in turn. It caused him unspeakable delight to remember the sounds that she had made when he kissed her.  _If she had let herself go so completely with a few kisses, what would she do if I touched her elsewhere?_ he asked himself. He quickly reprimanded himself for the thought. It was one thing to kiss his driver, it was quite another to contemplate making love to her.  _I guess it doesn't matter how old a man gets,_ he thought peevishly to himself.  _We still have only one thing on our minds. Fortunately for Sam, though, I've had a lot more years of restraint under my belt than those young men she likes to dance with…_

* * *

For her part, Sam had no difficulty getting to sleep: alcohol always made her drowsy, and the sweet memory of Foyle's kisses made her descend quickly into unconsciousness. Sam had always been a good sleeper, just like she was a good eater.  _Good thing I've got those bodily functions down at least,_ she thought to herself as she dozed off.  _It bodes well for the one I've yet to master._

Surprisingly for her, she woke up earlier than usual the next morning, before the sun had risen. The birds had already begun to sing outdoors and she knew that it would be daylight soon. Stretching lazily in bed, Sam recounted the night before. Despite her apparent boldness, she had been so afraid that Foyle would reject her outright.  _What made him act like he did?_  She asked herself.  _Was it because I'm about to leave?_ Sam realized that she had no idea what was going to happen next with her boss— _or was he Christopher now?_ She felt so confused about things that she was tempted to hide under her covers and not come out for another week. In her mind, she couldn't figure out any solution that would allow the two of them to be together, and that made her feel quite frustrated.  _Just as I find a man that I really like, a man I think that I could love some day, I have to give up my life here and return to Lyminster._

Sam thought of the alternatives. She could refuse her father's request to come home, but her mother was ill and her father would hold it against her for the rest of her life if anything happened to Mrs. Stewart while Sam was away. She might continue her tack of trying to persuade her father to let her stay, although she felt that she hadn't gotten very far with that, even with Foyle's help. Maybe she could move back to Lyminster and visit Hastings from time to time? But it wasn't likely that she could get train tickets very often, and she didn't know whom she'd stay with if she came to Hastings. The other possibility, that Foyle come visit her in Lyminster, seemed equally problematic, for Sam couldn't imagine her parents welcoming a mature suitor for their young daughter.

And as for Foyle himself, Sam was confused about why he had done what he had done—or, better put, what he had  _let them_   _do_  together. Where did he think all of this could go? Maybe he had a plan for them, even if she didn't. How did he really feel about her? He had clearly enjoyed kissing her, had complimented her, even. Even now she blushed when she thought about how he had called her beautiful. She hoped that he had said those things in earnest, and not because he was trying to seduce her.

Startled, Sam reflected on this last thought. She couldn't decide if she liked the idea of being seduced or not.  _I don't know what I want, either. Do I want him to kiss me? Or do I want him to be chaste? If I like his kisses, then why does it bother me to think that he might have "ulterior motives" for calling me pretty? Why do I go back and forth, wanting him to want me one minute, and hoping he'll let me set the pace the next?_

Sam dressed as she continued to think about Foyle. After last night, when she had admitted to him that she thought there could be more between the two of them, she wondered if Foyle thought that she was a bit "fast". There she was, prepositioning her boss in his own home! She promised herself to be more reserved from now on, something that it was not in her nature to do. Her friends would be the first to say that Samantha Stewart was a bit wild—not for nothing was she a vicar's daughter—but her wildness had tended more towards the sporting and sailing variety. Before the war she had been a great hand on a sailboat, and had spent many hours trolling up and down the south coast in her father's small craft, getting into not a few scrapes with her girl friends. Sam could be counted on to be the one to hatch a plan and execute it. She was the one who always carried a map, who knew how many miles they could go before the winds changed, who knew exactly how many sandwiches to bring for lunch, and which islands to anchor on. But Sam had to admit to herself that, when it came to Foyle, she had no idea how to proceed. There was no clear-cut plan here, no map to follow. She was lost.

Time to back off and let him steer the course.

* * *

When Foyle climbed into the Wolesley a few hours later, Sam could hardly contain her anxiety. Letting go of the responsibility to  _do_ anything about their situation, she hoped that he would show her the way.

"Where to, Sir?" she asked.

"Oh, back to 'Sir,' I see," he said. She looked straight ahead. "To the station, Sam."

There was an awkward silence. Sam pretended to have difficulty shifting the gears while Foyle put his hat on, then took it off, then put it on again. He was thinking of how to start the conversation that both of them knew was coming.

"I think we should wait and see what happens with your father," Foyle said, out of the blue.

"What?" Sam asked, daring to look over at him. He looked very serious and she felt a bit worried.

"Maybe he'll let you stay after all," Foyle said.

"I don't think that's very likely," Sam said. She almost pouted as she stared hard at the road.

"I'll see what I can do to convince him," he said. "You know, about last night—"

She interrupted him. "I've been thinking about it, Mr. Foyle, and I don't think that anything needs to change between the two of us." He raised his eyebrows in surprise or doubt. "I mean, I'm still your driver, until my father says otherwise, and you must know that I take my duty very seriously."

"I know you do, Sam," he said quietly. "That was never in question."

"It was wrong of me to say what I said to you last night," she told him. "It was highly unprofessional, and if you would accept my apology, I would be most grateful."

 _Most grateful?_  Foyle thought, somewhat insulted.  _All of this moral rigmarole that I put myself through in the past few months—all of the arguments I put to myself about why this shouldn't happen—and when I finally resolve to let things take their course, she wants to forget that anything even occurred?_ He wouldn't let her off so easily.

"I would accept your apology, Sam, if I thought it were sincere." Foyle looked at her as he put his hand over hers, where it lay on the wheel. She jumped a little, surprised at his touch. He removed his hand, hoping she hadn't minded it. "But while what you said may have been 'unprofessional,' I certainly don't think that it was  _wrong_. In fact," he paused, "I had rather hoped that we might spend some more time together. Off duty."

"If you think it's a good idea, Sir," Sam said. Inside her heart was beating.  _He wasn't angry at her!_   _He didn't regret last night!,_ she thought. But she still did not know how they would ever move forward.

Foyle smiled. "In fact, I think it's a  _very_  good idea. What are you doing tonight?" Sam pulled into the station.

"After driving you home?" she asked. "Nothing whatsoever."

"Good. Then I can take you out to dinner." She stopped the car and they got out. Sam nodded her assent, anxious that no one would hear what they were talking about.  _Back to being his employee again,_  she thought as she walked into the station behind him, maintaining the distance appropriate to her position. He stopped to look at some files, then they climbed the stairs to the second floor.

Foyle and Sam found Milner and Mr. Stewart in the detectives' office.

Surprised to see her father there, Sam exclaimed, "Dad, what are you doing?"

"Why, I've come to collect you," he said in a measured tone.

"I'm afraid you can't have her yet, Sir. She's needed," Foyle interrupted, looking at her. "Sam, follow me!" Sam hesitated, torn between her father and her boss. She looked down at the floor before turning to go after the detective. The vicar looked downcast as he heard the door shut. Sam had left with Mr. Foyle.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked.

"To the Graemes' house," he said.

"Why there?" Sam asked, surprised. She had no desire to see Alistair Graeme again.

"There was another murder last night. Milner rang me about it early this morning. I would have had us go straight there but I needed to pick up those files first," he explained.

"Another murder?" Sam asked. "Who died?"

"Mr. Graeme. Stabbed with a knife to the chest, just like the other man. Come, let's go talk to his widow." His brain was whirring as he tried to put the connections together. Graham Smith killed with a knife to the chest, Alistair Graeme killed the same way—did it mean anything?

For her part, Sam repeated Foyle's words to herself as they walked back to the car: "She's needed." Did he mean that  _he_  needed her? Even with the impersonal phrasing, that was what he had implied. He needed her and he wasn't going to let her go back. She missed the intimacy of the car ride, but part of her was glad that Foyle had put aside their morning's conversation and was back to being her boss again, focused on solving a murder and finding his son. She felt more comfortable when he was like that, because she knew where she stood with him. As her boss, he would explain the case to her, she would take a stab at solving it, and he would show her an alternative. She would press him for more information than he was willing to give and he would sidetrack her. And so on and so forth, all day long. It had been lovely these last few months, and she certainly was going to miss it, if she ended up leaving.

* * *

After Foyle had spoken with Mrs. Graeme, he returned to the car and met Sam, coming so close that she thought he was going to bump into her—or embrace her. But Foyle was just making sure that, whatever they had to say, no one else would hear it. He was sure that Sam would have some theory about the case. She had been looking at the body and now she wanted to tell him something.

"Sir," she addressed him. "Couldn't it have been a woman who did this? I mean, after what happened last night at the pub, I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two who would gladly stick a knife in him." She gestured as if she were stabbing someone. Foyle considered her idea. It wasn't bad, really.

A couple of men in blue uniforms interrupted her. R.A.F. police, they brusquely informed them that they would take over the murder investigation.

"You got my son," Foyle said carefully.

The taller officer turned in surprise. "Who told you that?" he asked.

"I want to see him," Foyle said firmly.

"Well, that's not possible. Anyway, I'm afraid this takes priority."

"You don't feel they're connected?" Foyle asked, smiling slyly.

"I'll be taking over this investigation," the other man said, annoyed. "So it's my job to find out."

"Well, you're a bit late," Foyle announced. "I already knew who killed him, and why he was killed."

The officer looked interested. "Tell me."

"Not until I've seen my son," Foyle bargained. The officer reluctantly agreed, and before she knew it, Sam and Foyle were following the R.A.F. officers in the Wolesley.

"Well done, Mr. Foyle," Sam said. "But do you really know who killed him?"

Foyle smiled. "Yes, I do, Sam. Remember what you said about some woman wanting to kill Graeme? I thought, what if it's not a woman, but someone  _close_  to a woman—a father, say? Someone who has a motive for revenge. The female plotter who killed herself—we need to learn more about her. There might be a connection with Officer Graeme. In fact, I'm almost sure that there is."

"So that's the story?" Sam asked. "Sounds awfully complicated."

Foyle sighed. "It's actually quite simple. Graeme must have gotten her pregnant, she committed suicide, and her father wanted revenge. But then it got more complicated, because he killed the wrong man."

"Graham Smith?" Sam asked, shocked and a little self-satisfied to have understood his meaning.

"Yes, precisely. He thought he was killing Alistair Graeme but he killed the wrong Graham. And so he had to go back and try again—same weapon, same wound, same name, different man."

"That's capital, Sir!" Sam said, delightedly. "I hope it's true."

"So do I," he said. "Or, I should say, I wish it  _weren't_  true—for in our business, we rarely  _want_  anything to happen that actually happened."

"I see what you mean," Sam said. "We don't  _want_  an innocent man to be killed, but we  _do_  want to find out who did it!"

"Right," he said. "It's a question of semantics." He paused, lost in thought. "I still don't know exactly what happened between Graeme and that plotter. But I'm guessing that, if he did what he did to you yesterday in the pub in plain sight, then we could expect him to do a lot more if he had a pretty young woman under his command."

Sam felt uncomfortable. For once, Foyle didn't seem to grasp the implications of his words.

"Forgive me," she said, "but I can't help but think—er—" she stammered.

"Yes, Sam?" he asked, distractedly.

"That I am also a young woman under an officer's command," she said.

"Did you think I would—? Sam—" Foyle sounded concerned. "You must know I would  _never_  –-"

"Never what, Mr. Foyle?" she said, icily. He noticed that she hadn't used his proper name once that day.

"I hope you don't compare me to Mr. Graeme," he said. "Please, I thought we talked about this last night. I would never make you do anything you didn't want to do. I thought you liked my attentions but if you don't, just say the word." Sam blushed.

"I  _did_  like them, Sir, but I just want to get one thing straight," she said. "Make that two things. First, am I under your command or am I your friend?"

"Both, for now," he said.

"And second—" she paused, gathering up her courage and sneaking a glance at him. "I want you to know that I am  _not_  going home in disgrace from this job. No P.W.P. for Samantha Stewart. Is that clear?" she asked pointedly.

"Perfectly clear, Miss Stewart. I believe you have made your point."  _What kind of man does she think I am?_  Foyle thought to himself.  _I would never get an unmarried woman pregnant._ He considered her situation. She did not know him so well as she might, he thought. But he could hardly blame her for worrying about her virtue, what with the example of Alistair Graeme laid out before her just minutes earlier.

The R.A.F. officers had stopped before a large brick building, and Sam pulled over to park the car. "Shall I come in with you or wait here?" she asked.

"Wait here," he told her. "I'd like you to keep a watch out."

"Yessir," she said.

"Don't you think the 'sir' business is a bit forced at this point, Sam?" he asked, teasingly. "I'd much rather you called me Christopher."

"Not when I'm on duty," she responded. "It's 'Sir' or 'Mr. Foyle' during working hours. Or everything will start to get muddled up."  _Damn, she was right!,_ he thought.

"All right, Sam. On the condition that you consider calling me 'Christopher' on off hours."

"I'll consider it—Sir," she said, as he opened the door to leave. "But some habits are hard to break."

 


	5. Chapter 5

Foyle felt a mixture of intense relief and irritation when he saw Andrew locked up in the R.A.F. cell. If he were a demonstrative man, he would have rushed to hug his son. But Foyle was aware that, even during their reunion, they were being watched by the R.A.F. officers. It was better to maintain some distance between the two of them and not let on—to anyone—how much he had been bothered by his son's disappearance.

Though it might have sounded irrational, part of Foyle wondered if Andrew were in some way responsible for being locked up.  _He is too much like me,_  Foyle thought.  _He probably thought it would be a good idea to play detective on the base and find out what had happened to that plotter. This never would have happened if he had just kept his mouth shut._ Of course, the very things that Foyle faulted in Andrew were traits that he himself possessed—traits that had, in fact, been copied from him. Seeing Andrew in the cell was a reminder of his own failure to kowtow to authority. It had never landed him behind bars, but Foyle suspected that he would have been doing something more important for the war effort than investigating small town murders, if he had not made a point in his career of revealing corruption among higher-ranking officers.  _But if I were working for military intelligence right now I would not even know that Andrew were missing. He would still be locked up and alone. And I would never have met Sam._

Perhaps Foyle was in the right place, after all.

Andrew was talking about some funny things that had happened on the base before he had ever been posted there. Before Foyle even asked him, he confirmed his father's suspicions: "A lot of strange things have been going on around here, even before I got posted. A girl killed herself…Lucy." Foyle nodded, not surprised, but even so—he imagined what it had been like for Andrew to work on a unit where a suicide had happened not long before. This whole experience had been difficult for Andrew, he could see that—he had to remind himself that Andrew was still very, very young. He was about the same age as Sam but the distance between them could have been a decade. _Why is it that girls mature so much faster than boys?_ Foyle asked himself.  _How could my son not have known that there were men in his unit who might do terrible things to the women under their command?_

The thought of the girl's suicide troubled Foyle more than he wanted to admit. She had killed herself because of the shame of an unwanted child, and it was a regrettable, unnecessary death. No wonder someone wanted to avenge her. Thinking of his driver, Foyle considered that he could hardly blame her father for wanting Sam to go back home with him. Nor could he reasonably expect a favorable response if he were to ask the vicar's permission to see his daughter.  _Ha!_ Foyle thought.  _One step like that on my part, and she would be whisked off to Lyminster before I could say another word._ No, he would have to keep his affection for Sam a secret, at least for now _._ And he would have to be completely straight with Sam about his intentions towards her. The last thing he wanted was to cause her needless distress if she believed that he wanted to seduce her and leave her pregnant, as Graeme had done to the young woman in his unit.

As much as Foyle wanted to keep thinking about his driver, he knew that Sam herself was waiting for him outside. He wanted to leave as soon as possible,  _with_  his son this time, and get back to the station to tell Milner what he had learned. But the R.A.F. men told him that they wouldn't let Andrew go until Foyle had presented them with the evidence for Graeme's murder. And so Foyle and Sam headed back to the station again, to see what Milner had learned about the other loose ends of the case.

* * *

Later that day, Sam bid her father farewell at the Royal Victoria Hotel, packing him into a cab bound for the train station. She could hardly believe that he had consented to let her stay in Hastings, working for Mr. Foyle, and had to ask him again to make sure it was really true.

"You're quite sure about this, Dad?" Sam said as they left the hotel.

"Oh, yes, I think so," he answered in a friendly tone. He had been quite impressed by the work that he had observed Sergeant Milner do on the case of the missing statue, not the least because of his own role in identifying the object.

"It was good to see you," Sam told him.

"You take care of yourself, my dear," he answered back, relieved that she would be going back to work "I don't doubt that you're in safe hands with Mr. Foyle, but even so, these are unhealthy times."

"Absolutely," she said, nodding in agreement. "But don't worry, I'll take care."

"Very well. Good-bye." He kissed her cheek.

"Send my love to mother." Sam smiled to herself with satisfaction as the vicar got into the car. She had got what she wanted, to stay in Hastings and continue to work with Mr. Foyle. Sam could hardly wait to tell him herself.

* * *

Back at the station, a lot had changed since the early morning. While Foyle had worked out the connection between Graeme and the plotter, Milner had been hard at work investigating the origin of the statue found in the ruins of Graham Smith's house. Sam's father had helped him to identify the broken statue as a valuable Berault, which led Milner to suspect that the museum's perfect inventory had not been as perfect as it had seemed the first time around.

Milner felt no small pride at his discovery. He sometimes felt that his efforts went unnoticed by Mr. Foyle, who expected so much from his subordinates that even extraordinary work felt ordinary by comparison. But Foyle had complimented him on the fine job that he had done solving the case, and even seemed impressed when Milner mentioned that he had gotten a signed confession from the London art dealer. Foyle and Milner were discussing the case when they heard a knock on the door, followed by Sam's entry. She had told them that she was probably leaving with her father that night, and they did not know whether to expect her back or not.

"Hello," she said, a beaming smile on her face. She nodded to Foyle.

"You're still here!" he said, trying to hide the emotion that he felt. Milner, after all, was in the room.

Sam took a breath and then spoke: "I'm afraid it's not  _quite_  that easy to get rid of me." She looked down. "My father changed his mind."

"So you persuaded him," Foyle surmised.

"Uh, no, Sir. In fact, it was you and Sergeant Milner. He was so excited to have helped solve a crime, it revised his opinion of the whole thing and he decided that perhaps, after all, I  _was_  doing an important job and that I should stay." Milner was smiling at the news, and so was Foyle. He would get to take her out that night, after all—unless Andrew was back again. Part of him wished that his son could stay another night in detention, or find a posting somewhere far from Hastings.

"Well, that's wonderful," the Chief Superintendent said, putting on his hat. "We don't have to walk." Sam laughed. Foyle moved towards the door and motioned for the two of them to follow him. There was somewhere else that they needed to be that day, and Sam was just the person to take them.

* * *

While Milner and Foyle spoke with the parents of the deceased plotter, Sam waited for them in the Wolesley. Foyle had specified that he didn't want her to come in with them; to himself, he thought that it might be too much for Sam to take if she were to find out the entire story about Alistair Graeme and Lucy Smith. The two men listened to her father recount how Graeme had forced himself on her, "Made her have relations up against the wall, said she couldn't get pregnant that way." It was a terrible story, a tragedy really—Lucy Smith as another Tess of the d'Urbervilles, raped by her employer and left with her own sorrow. Lucy's father would hang for two murders, Foyle knew, but the real criminal was beyond the reach of the law. Mr. Graeme was dead, but as a result of his actions, Andrew was still locked up in an R.A.F. cell. One more task for Foyle to solve that day—getting Andrew out of jail

The morning never seemed to end. One revelation followed another: Graeme's death, Sam's continuation on the job, the confession of the art dealer, the confession of Mr. Smith. Still later that day, Foyle would confront the other R.A.F. officer about his role in covering up Graeme's transgression and in planting stolen documents in Andrew's locker.

"Graeme was terrified it was all going to come out, and he used the investigation to keep my son out of the way," Foyle told the other man at the R.A.F. base.

"I was against it, I was against the whole idea," the officer said, shaking his head.

"And what he did to Lucy Smith might not have been perhaps strictly criminal, but it was immoral, improper, and downright  _disgusting_ ," Foyle said righteously. "It would have cost him his job, not to mention his marriage."

Foyle believed what he said, but he couldn't help but compare his own behavior the night before to that of Graeme's. Who was he to take the high moral road, if he himself were consorting with a woman under his command? Foyle knew that he needed to sort things out between himself and Sam, to make sure that there was absolutely no chance of a misunderstanding between the two of him. What he felt towards Sam was more love than lust—though he couldn't deny that she was a far prettier woman than he deserved at his age—and he needed to let her know that. But first—always first—Andrew.

"I want Andrew released," Foyle said to the officer, "and I don't want a word of this to go on his record." Minutes later, the cell was opened and Foyle asked Andrew to come with him.

"You are brilliant, Dad," Andrew said. "You know that?"

"Yep," Foyle said, smugly. He didn't get to hear Andrew compliment him very often.

The two men walked onto the grounds of the base, discussing Graeme, the documents, and Andrew's suspicion that Graeme had also tinkered with his plane, a hypothesis which Foyle refuted. Just as Foyle was thinking about how nice it would be to eat something at last—it was nearly three in the afternoon and he hadn't had anything since mid-morning tea—two bombs landed, very nearby. Startled, the Foyles ran for cover as the air raid sirens started. The shelter that Andrew picked for them was probably the worst place that they could be—a fuel dump—but the bombing was over quickly. As if they had planned it, as soon as Andrew and Foyle left their hiding place, Sam and Milner pulled up in the Wolesley.

"We were getting worried about you, Sir," Sam said.  _Well, I was at least. I can't say the same for Milner—he seemed calm as always._ "Are you all right?" she asked. Foyle opened the door to get in.

"All well, no thanks to this one," he said. Milner offered Foyle the front seat, next to Sam, but the detective refused it. He'd sit next to his son on this ride; wouldn't do to let the boy out of his sight so quickly.

That night, however, as Sam waited outside Foyle's office for him to say when it was time to leave for the evening, Foyle couldn't help but wish that Andrew had another place to stay. If Andrew's earlier curiosity about his father's personal life was any indication, he would give his father no end of grief if he invited Sam in for another drink. Foyle had told Andrew that he had to work late that night, to not expect him back for supper, yet he wondered if the young man would be hurt by his father's apparent neglect, just when he had be freed. On the other hand, thought Foyle, it was just as likely that Andrew would be spending the evening drinking at the pub, or dancing at the Hall, and would give his father no more than a passing thought. With this reflection, Foyle felt less guilty as he instructed Sam to drive to Eastborne.

"I thought we'd get something to eat at a little restaurant there," he told her once they had gotten into the car. "You don't have to be home by a certain hour, do you?" Sam glanced over at him.

"No, Sir, the landlady isn't very particular about hours. I'm lucky there!" She grinned. "Just show me the way."

"Sam—" he began. "I need to know something first." He spoke seriously, and she turned again to look at him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Do you  _want_  to come to dinner with me, or are you just saying yes because I am your boss?" He had begun to play with the buttons on his waistcoat, which he always did when he was uncomfortable.

"Of  _course_ I want to go to dinner with you," she said. "I told you I would, didn't I? That is, if I didn't have to go back to Lyminster today instead!"

"Well, that was certainly fortunate," Foyle remarked. "You could have been home at the vicarage by now, instead of driving me to dinner."

"Driving  _us_  to dinner," she corrected him.

"Yes, quite," he said. "Listen, Sam, I chose this place because Hastings folk don't go here often. We haven't talked about—I mean—" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Sam, I should like to—how do you young people say it?—step out? With you, I mean."

"You mean you want to see more of me?" she asked in amusement. "I'm glad to hear it." She smiled to herself, then turned and smiled at him.

"Sam, watch the road!" Foyle said in alarm. "You're drifting over the center line."

"Well, how can I pay attention to the road when you are asking if you can step out with me?" she asked him, careful to look straight ahead. "Would you like me to pull over?" she inquired, swerving the car on purpose. Foyle grabbed the edge of the car door and held on to it in surprise.

"Sam!" he nearly shouted. "Get back in your lane or pull over!"

Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road, near a farmer's hedgerow. Foyle straightened his tie before he spoke.

"Was that really necessary?" His mouth twitched.

"It wouldn't have been, if you had been patient enough to wait until we got to the restaurant to talk to me about stepping out together."

"And if I couldn't wait?" he asked pointedly.

Sam blushed and played with her driving gloves, pulling them off and putting them on again, then taking them off and laying them down beside her.

"I needed to tell you this, Sam," he said slowly. "I don't want you to think that I am like Alistair Graeme, preying on you because you are a young woman under my command. You are free at any time to report on me to your superior officers. What I did last night is probably enough to make me lose my job." He took a deep breath. "I'm telling you this because I want the choice to be up to you. You can leave the police at any time. You can tell me you don't want to step out with me, and I will try to figure out what is wrong, but if you still don't want to see me, you won't have to. I won't ever make you do something that you don't want to do. Is that clear?" he looked up at her.

"And if I  _want_  to see you, then what?" she countered.

"You'll see me at work, and whenever you'd like to see me otherwise. Listen, Sam—what I'd really like is if I could visit you at your father's house, and court you like you deserve to be courted. But I think that we can agree that that wouldn't go over well with your father, at least not right now, and perhaps we should wait a while before this is out in the open. See what we think of each other, get to know each other, that sort of thing."

"I see your point," she said. "Just like ordinary couples—except no one will know about us except ourselves."

"Er—yes," he said, a bit uncomfortable. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish—" she had turned to look straight at him, examining his face as he spoke.

"What do you wish for, Christopher?" she asked softly.

"I wish that I were fifteen years younger," he said. "I wish that you were not my employee when we met. I wish that there weren't a war going on just now."

"Things are damned difficult, aren't they?" she said lightly.

"They  _are_  difficult," he said. She was still looking at him, and he wondered what else she wanted him to say. "Is there something else, Sam?"

"I was just wondering when you were going to kiss me again." She smiled, pleased that she had caught him off-guard. The look on his face was priceless. "That seems like the easiest part of all this, doesn't it?"

Foyle leaned closer to her, taking her hand off the steering wheel and holding it in his own. He stroked her palm and she felt a shiver run up her arm when she felt his touch. He noticed how she closed her eyes and took a shallow breath when she felt his hand on hers. Foyle liked to watch how she responded to the most minimal touch of his. He was pleased beyond words that it was  _him_ , and not another man, who made her react in that way.

It was awkward, there in the car, with hardly any room to move in the cabin. But somehow Foyle maneuvered himself to face her. He moved his hands up her arms, over her uniform, until he reached her shoulders. Pulling her closer to him, he kissed her lips. They kissed lightly at first, maintaining a polite distance between the two of them, their kisses brief passes across each other's lips. He loved how she kissed him back, telling him what she wanted without saying a word; he felt exhilarated, young, desired. She pulled back from his kisses for a minute to look at his face.

"Now  _this_  is more like it," she breathlessly said, before Foyle reached forward to place another kiss on her open mouth. He opened his mouth, too, to grab her lower lip with his. Sam made a sort of gasping noise as he sucked, ever so gently, at her lip.  _He can't be—what in the world-he_ _ **is**_ _doing this!_ Sam thought. In a moment, her concept of what a kiss could be was turned upside down.

In its most basic form, a kiss was still the pressure of his lips on hers, but he was beginning to show her what it could  _also_  be: an exploration, a tease, a supplication. He was exploring this small part of her body, her lower lip, trying to find out what she liked and what she didn't. He sucked at the soft inner side of the lip, then ran his tongue along it. From her heavy breathing, he could tell that she liked this kind of kissing very much, but had been surprised by it. Again he reminded himself that she was a vicar's daughter. He imagined the kinds of kisses that she had had before, heartily planted by well-meaning boys who might have suffocated her with their eagerness. It had taken Foyle years to learn how to kiss his wife, and while he was loath to compare Sam with Rosalind, he had to admit that he was proud to offer those years of experience to Sam.

He didn't entirely intend his kisses to be a tease—in fact, he was in no hurry whatsoever—but that is how they felt to Sam. She glimpsed the depth of knowledge that he possessed about a woman's body, and she keenly felt her own ignorance. To her, his kisses suggested other forms of touch, in that they heightened her sensitivity along the other areas of her body. Even as he played with her lower lip, she imagined him sucking on her fingers, kissing the inside of her elbow, or caressing her collarbone. The car cabin felt very small; she yearned for more space, to be able to press back against him with her entire body.

The kiss was also a supplication; in this, Foyle would have agreed. He still feared that Sam would push him away or tell him that she had made a mistake. His kisses were his way of asking her to accept him as her lover, though he would never have used that word with her. "Stepping out," he had called it, though he thought that was hardly the appropriate term to use when they were unlikely to frequent many public places together. It bothered him that, for now, their relationship would have to remain a secret, but then again, perhaps that gave them the freedom to find out for themselves what worked and what did not when it came to the two of them. Social conventions could be so rigid; he rather liked the idea of Sam and him setting the rules for themselves, when they were alone. And so he secretly thought of himself as her lover: first, because he loved her, and second, because he wanted to teach her how to love in return. But while Foyle was determined to do nothing that Sam did not wish to do herself, he did not know if  _she_  knew this.

"Sam," he said suddenly, pulling back a little from her. "I want you to know something."

She put her hand to the back of her head, checking to make sure that her hair was still in place. It wouldn't do to turn up at the restaurant with her pins falling out, no matter how out-of-the-way Eastborne was.

"What's that?" she asked, disappointed that the kisses had stopped.

"I want you to know that—what I said before—about not making you do anything that you don't want to do—I meant it." He couldn't look her in the eye just then; he was planning his words carefully. "I know how I feel about you, Sam, and I think it's unlikely that you already feel the same way towards me. I'll admit that I wonder about your reasons for wanting to spend time like this with your superior officer. But I would like to have the chance to make you love me. And I think it is important that you know that I am not just looking for the opportunity to get you into bed."

Sam, inexplicably, felt hurt. Did he have any idea how she felt about him? How she wanted his attention, and his regard, and most of all his affection? How could he imagine otherwise? While there might be women in the forces who chased after the high-ranking men in their units, Sam did not like Foyle merely because he was the Detective Chief Superintendent of Hastings. It made her blush, too, that Foyle would discuss the question of "getting her into bed" so openly. It made her feel as if the tenderness between the two of them were somehow suspect.  _But he said that he wants me to love him,_  Sam reminded herself.

"I—I would very much like to give you the chance you just mentioned," she told him.

"Meaning?" he asked.

"The chance to make me love you," she said. Foyle closed his eyes and pressed one hand across his forehead. He felt as if he would explode from love for her. He wanted to reach over and embrace her and  _show_  her, again, what he felt for her. But it was beginning to grow dark, and they had a purpose that night.

"Sam, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say that I have a chance, at least," he told her. She was struck by the emotion in his voice. "We should talk about this further, but I'm worried about the time."

"Shall we go on to Eastborne, then?" Sam asked brightly.

"Drive on, Sam," he said. "I promise I won't make you stop another time."

"Any time is fine with me," she said meaningfully. "Just say the word."

 


	6. Chapter 6

They had a pleasant dinner in Eastborne. After the busyness of the day—things always came to a head just when a crime was being solved—it was a relief for both of them to sit quietly and discuss the events together. Sam was learning which kinds of questions to ask, and Foyle felt no small satisfaction at seeing how astute she was becoming at putting together the pieces of a case. He had complimented her more than once on her insight, and he made a mental note to do so again, when the occasion arose.

Foyle remembered the moment when he had first met her, surprised beyond words to see a bright young woman standing at attention in his office, where he had expected to see a young man. But this Sam was "Samantha," after all, and not "Samuel." Now he thanked God that it had been that way, but at the time he was taken aback. He had felt that he had been slighted again by his superiors, who had left him to find his own sergeant and assigned him a woman as his driver. He had been brusque with Sam on their first drive together, when she had peppered him with questions and offered to help him at the warehouse. He was still shocked that his driver was a young woman, a very attractive young woman to boot, and he had not the time to figure out how to handle the new situation. His brusqueness was his way of concealing his surprise and, also, the slight satisfaction that he felt at being in the company of an appealing young woman.

In retrospect, he wondered if Sam had noticed his surprise or been hurt by it. By the way she had responded to Andrew's comment that he didn't know his father had a female driver, he imagined that she must have felt a bit miffed by everyone's assumptions that a woman shouldn't know how to drive. Perhaps she had started the job feeling like she had something to prove—to him, to Milner, to her father?—and so had worked especially hard to win her boss's approval.

But no matter how motivated Sam was, she wouldn't have been a good assistant to him if she hadn't had the brains to begin with. Eagerness and gumption alone wouldn't have helped her to see the connection between Graeme's behavior towards her at the pub, and his behavior towards Lucy. No, Sam had more than motivation—she was intelligent, and it was not the first time that Foyle thought that it was a pity that she could not officially join the police.

Across from him, Sam felt excited by the novelty—it still felt like one—of going out to dinner with Mr. Foyle as his special guest. Even though she was still in uniform, and even though they had tacitly agreed to behave like professionals when they were in public together, she knew that this wasn't an ordinary evening out with her boss. The way that Foyle looked at her in the eyes, for one thing, when he had tended to skirt her gaze the other times they had eaten together. He held her stare much more frequently than she was accustomed to, and his sharp gaze made her feel as if he could read her thoughts and sense her feelings. There was a difference in him from before, when he had tended to shut his face down or turn away if she pressed him about personal matters. Now, he was open to her every word, his face revealing his interest and delight in her company.

Foyle was a sensual man, she realized. His sensuality was manifest not only in the way that he held his body, upright and secure in himself, but most especially in the way that he moved his face. His gestures were subtle and difficult to read at times, but within their restricted range there was so much variation, so much meaning. He could express himself with only the raise of an eyebrow, or by opening his eyes wide and staring at her in that puckish way of his. A corner of his mouth might turn up in sympathy or in doubt. Every motion he made was significant, and Sam was just beginning to understand the code. Feeling his full attention turned on her made her feel either terribly important or terribly transparent. She felt as if she could speak with him forever, like they were now, face to face, a world of meaning passing between the two of them.

Foyle was thinking about how fetching she looked sitting across from him, still in uniform but more relaxed, less formal than when they were at the station. He was fascinated by the way she spoke with the waiters, urging them to make a dish that wasn't on the menu, and somehow succeeding.  _She can make anyone do anything,_  he thought.  _The woman could charm a snake._ Suddenly he realized how little he knew about his driver, other than what he could glean from their work-related conversations. He felt old when he considered that to ask her about her life would mean asking her about her childhood—she had just barely reached maturity. It made him feel rather foolish to start questioning her about her schooldays and her parents, when his own childhood was so far behind him. He had already met her father, and he knew a little bit about her mother, too. Perhaps he'd start there.

"How is your mother, Sam? You said that she was ill…."

"Oh, yes, she's always ill with something." Sam grinned, trying to make her voice sound light.

"Oh?" he asked, curious.

"Yes, if it's not her nerves then it's angina or indigestion or a headache. She has always had problems with her health, ever since I was a child. That's probably why I didn't want to join up as a nurse—I've seen enough of the inside of hospitals to last me for the rest of my life. The sight of blood doesn't scare me, it's the hopelessness of the sick that gets me down. I know my father would have rather that I stayed at home and cared for  _her_ , but when I turned 22 I swore that I'd never again live in a house where I couldn't listen to music or laugh or cry. We always had to be absolutely quiet at home." Foyle raised his eyebrow. "Her nervous problems would come on if there was too much excitement. You can just imagine how hard it was for me to not run up the stairs or slam the door by mistake."

"I imagine so," Foyle said drily. "And so you're making up for all that silence now?" he asked.

"I must be," she admitted gaily. "I sometimes feel as if nothing in the world could make me be quiet!" She looked at him over her glass. "I hope you don't mind all the chatter."

"Not at all," he said. "Though I have wondered from time to time if it would take a kiss to make you stop talking."

Sam nearly choked on her water, then looked around to see if there was anyone nearby. The waiter had put them in a quiet corner, next to a window that overlooked the sea. The sun had set and Sam could see their reflections in the glass. No one had overheard him.

She couldn't meet his eye for a minute. Had he really thought about kissing her, then, when she had assumed that he was bored by all her chitchat? Foyle kept eating as if he had remarked on nothing more serious than the weather. It amused him to see her discomfited, knowing that he was probably right. The only time that he could imagine Sam being silent was if her mouth was occupied with something else. At the moment, she was eating, so that did the trick. Later, before she dropped him off at his house, he would make sure she had her moment of quiet again. But first, more conversation.

"Sam," he said. "I wondered—I mean, I asked about your mother because I feel like I know precious little about you."

"Really?" she asked. "I would have thought you knew quite a lot more about me than I know about you." He raised his eyebrows. "You're not particularly forthcoming about yourself, you know," she pointed out.

"I'm a detective," he said. "I'm more accustomed to interviewing other people."

"Is this what this is?" she asked gesturing to the table and then to both of them. "Are we here for an interview?" She smiled. Now it was his turn to feel uncomfortable. Had she deliberately misunderstood him?

"Not unless you want it to be," he returned.

"I rather liked the interrogation you gave me the other night," she said playfully.

Foyle felt a line of heat forming around his neck. He felt the urge to loosen his tie but he reminded himself that he was in public. Sam was a sly one, he knew that—he just hadn't had any idea of how much fun it would be to take their verbal sparring one step further.

Foyle put down his fork and folded his hands on his lap. Sam didn't seem to notice that he had stopped eating until she felt his hand on her knee. He had quietly lifted the tablecloth and reached under the small table, feeling around until he found her leg. Her skirt had slid up somewhat—it pleased him to imagine what she would have looked like if the table had not been in the way—and he could feel her bare skin against his palm. Sam pursed her lips into an "o" and looked at him. His hand was unexpected, but that didn't mean that it was unwelcome. But part of her worried lest he take it any further.

"What are you—" she started.

"What?" he asked her. "Is there anything wrong?"

A waiter was approaching them and Foyle withdrew his hand.

"Would you like any dessert?" the waiter asked. "Or tea?"

"I'd like a cup of tea," Sam said.

"Nothing for me," Foyle said. "Thank you." The waiter left and Sam crossed her legs under the table, sitting back in her chair.

"Was that part of the interrogation?" she asked him.

"I think this stage might be better classified as an 'investigation,' don't you?" he asked.

"Oh? And may I ask what you have learned so far?" She leaned back in her chair and waited for him to speak.

"Well, preliminary evidence would suggest that you were startled at first, but I suspect that if the waiter hadn't come by just then, you might have gotten used to it."

Sam blushed. "You shouldn't have done that, Sir—I mean Chri—sorry." She caught herself using 'sir' again. "Someone might have seen you."

"Yes, someone might have seen me. But they didn't. I'm not a detective for nothing, Sam," he said.

The waiter returned with tea for Sam and the bill for Foyle.

"Will it take you long to finish your tea, Samantha?" he asked her.

"Are you hurrying me?" She looked at him over the edge of the tea cup. "I would have thought that a thorough investigation would take more time."

"Perhaps we should continue this in the car. It has been a long day and we still have a ride back to Hastings. If I'm going to have time to properly kiss you goodnight—" he looked at his watch—"we had better leave soon."

Sam downed her tea in a hurry while Foyle went to settle the bill.

They chatted lightly during the ride home, each one secretly pursuing their own thoughts underneath the surface babble. Sam was startled by the way that Foyle had touched her under the table. She couldn't figure out what he meant by it, and that frustrated her. Did he want to tease her? Surprise her? Arouse her? He had given her no clue. Sometimes she felt as if he were speaking a different language, or operating in a different world from her own. These were the sorts of games that she had always imagined that men and women played together, but Sam felt herself at a distinct disadvantage when it came to a match with her boss. She chided herself for having imagined that she was learning to read his expressions. Foyle was still a mystery to her.

For his part, Foyle was smugly remembering how smooth Sam's leg had been, and how, if he hadn't been mistaken, she had caught her breath when he had first touched her under the table. Part of him knew that he shouldn't have done such a thing, that it might have given her the wrong impression of him. But he had been impressed at her ability to volley back any comment he gave her, and he was looking for a way to catch her off-guard. It certainly had surprised her, but he wasn't merely being hopeful when he said that he thought she would have gotten used to it. Given time, he hoped that she would learn just how much he liked surprising her. The only problem was, he had promised her that he would take things at her pace, meaning that he might not have many opportunities to catch her unawares.

It was Foyle's turn to be surprised when Sam pulled the car over on the coast highway, about a mile outside of Hastings.

"I though we'd stop here," she said. "I'm ready for my nighttime kiss, you know. Better to do it here than in town."

"Good thinking, Sam," he said, almost formally. He looked out of the car window, out to the dark sea. There was no blackout that night, otherwise they would have been stuck in Hastings, and it was clear enough that he could see the moon rising over the water and, just very faintly, lights on the French coast.

Sam had opened her door to get out. She walked to the front of the car and leaned back against the hood, staring out at the sea. Foyle let himself out and joined her, sitting next to her, his hip just barely touching hers. He reached for her hand and she let him take it, but she kept her face fixed out on the waves.

"Do you ever feel frightened?" she asked. "Looking across the Channel, thinking the Germans might come…it makes me nervous."

"It makes me nervous too, Sam," he said. "But we can't worry about that all of the time. We have our jobs to do, our lives to lead…" He thought that his answer sounded too tidy, too much like what a chief superintendent was supposed to say. "Andrew reminded me recently that life goes on, even during a war. I suppose that's why I'm here with you, Sam," he confessed. "The first war changed me. It made me into a man. It showed me that I could lead others, that I was more than the station I was born in to. Now this war is showing me other things."

"Like what kinds of things?" Sam asked him quietly, not wanting to interrupt him for fear that he would not continue his soliloquy. It was so rare to hear him talk about himself.

"The excuses that people make for their behavior in times of war. That makes my job more difficult. The rules have changed, the enemy is bigger. There are always people who want the police to bend the rules for them, but now we're dealing with people who have the protection of the government, and the excuse of wartime." He was silent for a minute.

"Then there's Andrew. He and I—I can't say that we never got along, when it's just been the two of us for all these years. But things are changing between us. It's his turn to be heroic and he needs someone to fight against, only the Jerries aren't here fast enough for him, so I'm the one he chooses to fight with."

"That must be difficult," Sam sympathized. "But you got him out of the R.A.F. lock-up, right? Wasn't he grateful for that?"

"He expected that I would come through and get him out of this scrape, just like I've gotten him out of most every scrape he's ever put himself in. But I'm afraid that one day he'll knock up against the wrong people and do something that his father can't fix."

"You'll have to let him do it then," Sam said, squeezing his hand. "It's up to him to take care of himself, right?"

"Yes." Foyle grew silent again. Sam wondered what he was thinking.

"Then there's you, Sam."

"Me?" She hoped he would say more. He turned to look at her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Yes, you." He smiled at her. She could just barely make out his face in the moonlight. He sighed. "There's you, here with me, and part of me feels like the scummiest old man imaginable to be sitting here about to kiss my driver, and another part of me feels like this is  _right_ , like you have come into my life to remind me that I have to keep living."

"Did you ever want to stop living?" she asked, concerned.

"Not  _that_ ," he said. "But the joy was gone in my work—it had become routine. I was thinking of retirement. And then this War came, and it seemed like maybe I'd get a chance to do something bigger for the war effort, and then that came to nothing, and I ended up here in Hastings again, investigating local murders and trying my best not to ruffle the feathers of military intelligence or the R.A.F. But then they assigned you to me, and you know the rest, Sam."

"Do I?" she asked. She wasn't going to let him get away without telling her how he felt.

"As much as you need to know," he said. "Suffice it to say: I enjoy your company. I want to see more of you, outside of work, though I probably would have settled for just seeing you in uniform. I couldn't bear the thought of you leaving with your father before we had had time to get to know each other better. And I can scarcely believe—" he hesitated, then stopped.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing, Sam," he said, pulling her face close to his as he kissed her. "Nothing, I am just happy that you are here with me." He pressed his lips on hers as he pulled her to her feet.

Sam wrapped her arms around Foyle's neck and kissed him in return. He was taken aback by the fervor of her kisses. Whereas Sam had responded passionately to his kisses before, he sensed a difference now. She was leading him instead of waiting for him to direct her. She kissed his lips fervently, moving her tongue into his mouth to see if he liked it. He was surprised and relieved by her forwardness. It reassured him to see that she was a passionate woman and, moreover, that she could direct this passion towards him. He became aroused by her kisses, though he tried to keep his lower body away from hers so that she wouldn't notice right away. He still didn't know how much Sam knew about sex and he didn't want to scare her with his eagerness.  _Even if she was inexperienced, she was doing just fine by herself_ , he thought.  _Though maybe she should remember to catch her breath from time to time._

His arousal grew and just when he thought he'd have to pin her against the car and take the lead, he felt soft, butterfly kisses pass over his face. She flitted from his forehead to his cheeks to his chin, kissing him gently. Had he ever been kissed thus? He felt cherished— _protected,_ even—by her delicate touch. At this moment Foyle realized that she was kissing him for himself, and not just because he was available or because he was her boss. She was kissing him for all of the right reasons: because she was Sam and he was Christopher. Affection and regard were behind Sam's light kisses, and if Foyle dared to believe it, a growing sense of love and tenderness as well. She would not have kissed him this way if it had been otherwise. He felt touched by this realization, and more determined than ever to do right by her, whatever that meant in the end. The war had changed a lot of things, and sexual morals were an early casualty.

Sam could feel the warm air blowing in from the shore, its salty smell signaling the nearness of the sea. The night felt enormous, mysterious, deep. They stood facing Europe, two insignificant people on the British coast, caught up in the only force that could rival violence.

"Shall we go back to Hastings, Foyle?" Sam asked. She liked using "Foyle" instead of "Mr. Foyle" or "Sir" - or "Christopher," which was still too familiar.

"I'd like another kiss, Sam," he said. "And then we'll head back." Sam took Foyle's hands in her own and pressed their fingers together. Foyle leaned forward for his kiss, looking straight into her eyes as he pressed his face against hers. He held her neck in his hands and turned her head so that he could see her profile and the fine lines of her cheek. Then he turned her again so that he could kiss her soundly. "Sam Stewart," he said seriously. "You do know how to kiss a man."

"I do?" she asked, coquettishly.

"You do," he said, smiling. "Do you think we could continue this another night?" She assented and the both moved back into the car.

Not long later, Sam dropped Foyle at his house. She left the Wolseley at the police station and walked back to her flat by herself. Even in Hastings, she could see the stars above. They reminded her of the stars they had seen on the coast road, shining bright and far above Europe. She pondered their distance and their beauty, remembering a poem she had studied in school.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art -  
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night  
And watching, with eternal lids apart,  
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,  
The moving waters at their priestlike task  
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,  
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask  
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -  
No - yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,  
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,  
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,  
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,  
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,  
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

-John Keats

 


	7. Chapter 7

It had been a strange morning for Foyle.

First, he had run into Arthur Lewes, a barrister whose wife, Elizabeth, he had briefly courted in his youth. Soon after the unexpected encounter with Lewes, Elizabeth herself arrived, and Foyle was thrown back more than twenty-five years, to the young man he had been before meeting Rosalind. It was enough to give any man a good shake.

To top matters off, Milner had arrived a moment later to tell him that Sam's house had been bombed overnight. Foyle had been worried when Sam hadn't shown up on time that morning, but he was even more worried when Milner couldn't say if anyone had been injured by the bomb. Together, the two men went as quickly as they could to the site of the wreckage, Mr. Rivers driving. Foyle was indescribably relieved when he saw Sam sitting on an old sofa among the ruins of the row house, her hair tousled as if she had just got out of bed. He could not resist the urge to put his hands on her arms as she tried to stand up to greet him, not even caring that Milner was there.

"I'm sorry I didn't show up for work, Sir," Sam said.  _I hope that you were not too worried about me,_  she thought.  _I would hate to cause you concern._

"It couldn't matter less," he said, sincerely. "Do sit down." What he would have given to be able to take her into his arms at that moment! If he weren't on the job, if Milner weren't next to them, if the Auxiliary Fire Service and Sam's landlady weren't all scurrying around in their midst—there is so much more that he would have said, so much more that he would have done. But he was still on duty, no matter what had happened to Sam, and from the looks of things, there might be something that needed to be investigated.

"Take her to the station," Foyle commanded Milner, once Sam had finished telling them about the night's events. She seemed shaken by the death of her flatmate, another young woman, and Foyle wanted to get her away from the disturbing scene as soon as possible. But Sam insisted on staying, and he did not push the point. He had seen this before, how survivors were reluctant to leave the scene where others had died. It might help with the shock of the event if Sam were able to stay and witness what happened next. Foyle acquiesced to Sam's wish, leaving her to speak with Mrs. Harris, her landlady, who appeared quite concerned about some rare coins that had gone missing in the bombing.

Sam, who might have been killed, seemed more precious to him that day than she had ever been before. Even as Foyle went about talking to the landlady, his mind was distracted by the thought of how easily Sam might have been lost, if the bomb had gone five feet in the other direction. She had had a close call, and he hoped that she was all right, inside as well as out. It must have been shocking for her to see her flatmate killed in that fashion. He wondered what else would come of all this. Would Sam's family decide that Lyminster was a safer place for her to be? Would she develop a phobia of planes flying overhead, like so many he knew on the south coast? Somehow he couldn't imagine Sam spending every night in the Wolseley, parked far away from town. No matter how much he associated her with the car, he knew that she was more resilient than most, and was unlikely to end up traumatized.

Back at the station later that day, Foyle addressed practical matters first with Sam.

"What about finding somewhere else to live?" he asked, trying to sound impartial. Somehow the AFS had managed to save a trunk of her belongings before fire had taken over fire. She was seated in her office in her spare uniform, looking as downcast as Foyle had ever seen her. He had poured her a small glass of whisky to settle her nerves, and she clung to the glass tightly, not letting it go even when she put it down on the table.

"I'll find something, Sir," she responded. Foyle heard Milner's careening gait in the hallway and the sergeant walked in to join them. He had been about to offer Sam the spare room in his house, the one Andrew had left empty when he went to Oxford. But the sergeant's sudden entry made it impossible to speak of the subject. Besides, they had a case to attend to.

The ostensible purpose of their meeting was to discuss the bombing and the stolen objects, so Foyle quickly turned to professional business. Sam provided an account of what she had seen the night before, and Foyle directed his attention back to the matter at hand. But he kept watching Sam as she recounted the events, and he was struck by how changed her expression was from just a day earlier.

Again, he felt his heart catch in his throat when he dared to think that he might have lost her that day. She was so young, so unbelievably young, and to think that she might have been killed! Foyle did not like to dwell on the possibility. He had already lost so many people in his life: his parents, though their deaths had been long ago; his dear Rosalind and any chance of growing old together; Rosalind's first pregnancy, to miscarriage; his comrades in the Great War, those farm boys whom he had fought beside, who had elevated him to their commander. Love was sweet but its loss lasted longer. With Andrew at daily risk of being sent on a mission, Foyle wondered how much more time remained with his son.

And now, there was Sam. She sat there in his office, as she had so many times before, calm on the surface but obviously ruffled inside. Foyle knew that working through the shock would help Sam, as it had so often helped him in the past. Work had seen him through the roughest moments in his life, like during his wife's illness or, long ago, when Elizabeth had jilted him for Lewes. It had been a great surprise to see Elizabeth at the court that morning. He had not thought about her in years, had never let his mind dwell again on what might have been. Forgetting her had been easier than continually pondering the loss.

He wished that Sam could so easily forget what had happened to her the night before. He worried about what the consequences might be if he let her stew for too long in her own thoughts. Milner left to see about some files, and Foyle was again alone with Sam in his office.

"Sam," he said gently, wishing that he could touch her but knowing that he must never do so in the station. "Are you well?"

"Not quite well, Sir," she said.  _Back to being the driver again._ Foyle was momentarily hurt by the change, but then acknowledged to himself that the formality of their roles might help her remain calm and anchored even while she was trying to figure out what it meant to have escaped death so narrowly.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked. He did so want to help her, but he didn't know what he could do right then as her boss. As for acting like more than just her boss, it was impossible for him to do at the moment. He tried to convey his concern for her with a kind gaze, but she had turned her face away from him.

"No," she said, shaking her head sadly. "I just keep thinking of Jenny—keep thinking that it could have been me. She was nearly my age, and now she's dead. I don't want to die—I feel like I've barely lived yet!" She looked up into Foyle's face. He noticed, not for the first time, how dark her eyes were, almost black.

"Sam—" he started, awkwardly.

"You don't need to say anything!" she said, wiping away a tear from her eye. "I just want to be left alone for a few minutes. Can't you give me that?" She was sorry to speak to him so roughly but she didn't think she would be able to stop crying if he kept on looking at her in that way, with such sympathy and concern in his eyes. Part of her wanted to bury herself deep in his arms and let him rock her to sleep, while another part of her wanted him to leave her alone for a very, very long time.

Foyle obeyed her request and stood up to leave. He feared saying anything that would upset Sam further and make her say things that she would later regret. Besides, there were lots of things to look into that day, starting with the AFS team that had responded to the bombing. And, he remembered, he still had a dinner party to go to that evening, albeit one that he was not looking forward to very much.

* * *

"Sam, can you drive me to dinner tonight?" Foyle asked Sam later that day, coming in to the room where she and Milner were working to sort case files. For Milner's sake, he kept up the pretense of being just a boss who expected his driver to follow his orders. Privately, Foyle would have preferred to spare Sam the chore of driving him to dinner, but no one else at the station was available that evening. There would be plenty of time for him to walk home and change into his dinner clothes before Sam picked him up at his doorstep.

"Yes, Sir," she said, a bit reluctantly. "What time?"

"Well, uh—six? Can you come by my house at six this evening? I need to change before dinner."

"Do you need me to drive you home first?" she asked politely.

"No, no, Sam, keep on as you were. I'll walk home. Just meet me there at six to take me to the Lewes'."

"Very good, Sir." Foyle left the office and Milner considered the exchange. He thought that it was rather hard of Foyle to ask Sam to work that night when she had just been bombed out of her house the night before.

"Must be some dinner party he has to get to," he commented to Sam. She smiled tightly.

"Yes, can't imagine why he needs to make himself so fancy. I would have thought the regular suit was good enough."

* * *

Somehow, Sam managed to pull herself together for the rest of the afternoon. She had been avoiding Foyle after he asked her to drive him, that much he could see, but he let her have some time to herself. He left the station without saying good-bye to her; he knew that he could trust her to bring the Wolseley around at the time he had indicated.

True to form, Sam was thirty seconds late. Foyle had expected that she would look glum, but he was rather relieved by how quickly she returned to her bright, noisy self after the day's difficult events. In the car she tried (rather unsuccessfully), to amuse him with a story of a woman who had been robbed by a policeman in London.  _Can't he see that I'm nattering on about nothing in particular?_ Sam thought to herself.  _He doesn't even see how much of a wreck I am right now. Must be that blasted dinner party._

Indeed, Foyle  _was_  preoccupied with the upcoming dinner and seemed not to hear her until she asked him where he was going and whom he'd be seeing.

"So, whom are you having dinner with?" she asked. Foyle wondered if there was just a hint of jealousy in her voice.  _Did she want me to take her with me?_  He asked himself.  _Or does she just wish that I could see her again tonight? God knows I would prefer to be with her rather than rubbing elbows with the "V.I.P.s" of Hastings._

"A man called Arthur Lewes," Foyle told her, deliberately avoiding mention of Lewes' wife. "He's a barrister, a very good barrister. I knew him years ago." He tried to sound casual but Sam, as she so often did of late, picked up the strange note in his voice.

"You never mentioned him before," she said.

After a pause, Foyle said, "No, I never mentioned him." Sam looked at him with curiosity.

Foyle wondered if she expected him to tell her everything, now that they were seeing each other outside of work. He would have to set her straight on that point. He had had a life before he met her, and there were parts of that life that he might choose not to share with her. She would simply have to understand that.

"Sam," he said, "There are some things I prefer not to discuss with you. Please don't make it an issue."

"Yes, Sir," she said coldly. "When should I pick you up?"

Just then, a man appeared in the front of the car, startling both of them. Sam reacted quickly and braked in time, but not before he hit her bumper. The man ran off into the darkness and there was no chance to ask him if he was all right.

"Was that him?" Sam asked, hoping that they had spotted the mysterious Mr. Lewes.

"No, it wasn't," Foyle said, a bit perplexed.

"Well, I hope it wasn't the cook," Sam joked. Then, "You still haven't told me what time you'd like me to pick you up."

"Are you planning on leaving me here and then coming back?" he asked her.

"Did you expect me to wait here all night while you were hobnobbing with Americans and barristers? I need to do something back at the station. Don't worry, I shan't take long."  _So,_  Foyle thought,  _she_ _ **is**_ _miffed that she didn't get an invitation to dinner. How ridiculous. She's still my driver, for God's sake. I can't have her just waltz in on my arm as my special guest. Not yet, at least._

* * *

"Elizabeth," Foyle said, as Lewes' wife greeted him. "You are looking well." It was a polite comment, nothing more. But Elizabeth  _did_  look well: in fact, she looked splendid, in a black velvet frock with an unusual gold and white collar that set off her face to great effect.

"I'm glad you agreed to come," she said softly. "So are you!" she added, a bit nonsensically. Foyle thought that she appeared nervous. Elizabeth quickly changed the subject. "How is Andrew?"

"Andrew is—very well," Foyle said. "And you've got two sons, is that right?"

"Yes, yes. Jack's in London at the MOI and my other son, Christopher, is still at school, thank God." She looked down, aware that she had revealed too much already, just with the mention of her younger son.

"Really?" Foyle said. "Christopher?"

"Yes," Elizabeth answered, hoping both that he would and would not understand why she had given her son that name.

Just then, Lewes came bounding into the foyer, practically shouting out the same name, delighted to see Foyle: "Christopher!" He came towards the two of them. "Why is Elizabeth keeping you out in the hall?"

It was not the most amiable of company at the dinner, but Foyle could not deny that it was an interesting cast of characters, to rival the best of Agatha Christie's dinner parties: the American industrialist, the Hastings barrister, the local neurologist and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Lewes, of course. It was not the first time that Foyle had been forced to socialize with those who considered themselves his "betters," but he was somewhat surprised that an American like Howard Paige would notice the social distinction between himself and the rest of the guests.

The man, upon learning from Elizabeth that Andrew was at Oxford, remarked that it was not likely that Andrew would follow in his father's footsteps and go on to join the police. Foyle agreed with that statement, but not for the reasons that Paige thought he did. There was no chance of Andrew willingly doing anything that his father had done. If Christopher was loyal to a fault, Andrew was chameleonic in his attachments; where the father was cautious, the son was foolhardy; one was cold and calculating, the other all heat and fireworks. No, Andrew would not become a policeman. Likely enough, if he got out of this war alive, he would become a politician or some other such public figure. Even a barrister, perhaps, though Foyle shuddered to think of his son trying to defend another person in court.  _Though, to be fair, Andrew does enjoy the sound of his own voice,_ Foyle thought.  _Maybe he'd enjoy the audience of a courtroom. Let's just hope he never gets to be a magistrate…_

* * *

Milner was working late that night at the station, doing his best to compile a thorough dossier on the AFS squadron. There was little point in going home early, when Jane was still in Wales and the house was cold and empty. Besides, he knew that Foyle would expect a report first thing the next morning, and Foyle was not one to let things slide if they didn't get done.

Milner did not expect to see Sam still at the station so late that night.  _Poor Sam,_ he thought.  _She just lost her home, she lost her friend to the Jerries, and now she has no one to take care of her or help her here in Hastings._ Musing on his colleague's situation, he decided that the Christian thing to do was to invite her to stay in his spare room, until she could find more permanent living arrangements. If Jane had been there he was sure that she would approve, and if she was hiding out in Wales with her sister, then it was her fault, not his, that he couldn't let her know ahead of time what he intended to do.

Coming into where Sam was working, Milner asked her if she had found a place to stay yet. It was late at night and Sam was still hard at work ringing around to find suitable accommodations for herself. She had never imagined that it would be this difficult to find another room, but no one seemed to want to house unattached young ladies.

"They all seem to be full," she complained.

"How many have you tried?" Milner asked.

"A dozen." She looked up at him. It occurred to Milner that Sam was really quite fetching, and he felt a momentary sensation of disappointment, or loss, as he considered her presence in front of him.

"What will you do if you  _can't_  find anywhere?" he asked, putting his teacup down on her desk. She pursed her lips and looked down at her lap.

Sam had hoped that Foyle would have sensed the urgency of her predicament and helped her find someplace to stay or, better yet, offered to let her stay with him. Even if he was hesitant to invite her to his own home—and she felt hesitant at this idea, too—surely he must know of  _someone_ in Hastings who had a spare room. She suspected that there were  _plenty_  of spare rooms at the large house that the Lewes owned. Foyle knew people, but he hadn't even bothered to think about helping her. Something about that dinner had kept him preoccupied on their drive out that evening; he had hardly looked at her and seemed to have forgotten all about the day's events. She was upset that he had asked her to drive him, too, when there were so many other things that she needed to do that evening to sort out her life.  _Couldn't he have asked Milner for once?_ she thought pettishly.  _I know he only has one good leg but I think he can still use the clutch._ She scolded herself for this thought: Milner was being considerate of her situation, even if Foyle was not, and he deserved a night in as much as she. Besides, he clearly was still working; it's not as if he had got off any easier.  _With Foyle as our boss, we never get a break,_  she thought resentfully.

"I suppose I'll have to stay here. Maybe somebody will give me a cell. It's funny, my father always said that I'd end up behind bars." She wished that her tone of voice could have matched the humor behind the words, but she felt worn out and very much alone. Foyle was probably eating a marvelous supper right then and sharing detective stories with the other guests, while  _she_  was scratching her head trying to figure out what to do next.

Milner had an idea.

"You can't stay here, Sam," he said, shaking his head at the idea that it had even crossed her mind. "You can come and stay with me, if you like." His delivery was matter-of-fact, to leave no doubt in her mind that this invitation was a friendly gesture and nothing more.

"Really?" Sam said. She could hardly believe that Milner, of all people, would let her stay with him, when Foyle, her boss and—what else was he? Friend? Suitor? Admirer? Whatever he was to her, he had not shown the least preoccupation about her situation.

"Just for a few days, I mean. I don't want you to get the wrong idea."  _Did he just wink at me?_  Sam thought to herself. She was already starting to get the wrong idea, but after what she had been through the night before, even a wrong idea sounded like a good one.

"My wife is away with her sister in Wales," Milner continued.  _Definitely the wrong idea_ , Sam thought.  _What would my father say if he knew that I was staying at a married man's house while his wife was away?_ Then,  _What would Foyle say if he knew?_ "I have a spare room at the back of the house," he went on.  _As if that would make much difference! I'm still going to be in_ _ **your**_ _house! Without your wife!_

Sam knew that she was about to make a very bad decision, but she didn't see any alternative, other than sleeping in the jail cell or begging Foyle to let her go back with him when she picked him up. So she tried to sound grateful and said, "Oh, but that would be  _really_ tickety-boo. Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "There is one thing, though. I don't think we should mention this to Mr. Foyle."

"No, I think you're right," Sam said.  _This may be the wrong thing to do, but you're absolutely right about one thing: this is something that Mr. Foyle definitely does not need to know about._ "I don't think he'd approve." She felt a slight twinge of guilt at the thought that she and Milner were going behind Foyle's back.  _But it's his own fault,_  she thought defiantly.  _He had plenty of chances today to help me find another situation. And he was so caught up in that dinner party that he didn't even think about it._

To Milner, she tried to appear thankful. "This is very, very kind of you," she said.

"Don't mention it," he said.  _Believe me, I won't say a word,_  Sam thought.  _Fire and brimstone couldn't pull it out of me._

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed, suddenly remembering the time. "I have to go pick Mr. Foyle up! I'll see you later? Want me to come round and get you after I leave him at his house?"

"Capital idea," Milner said. "I still have some reports to finish." It was nearly ten but he knew that it would be a late night, no matter what. And he looked forward to  _his_  chance to have Sam as his driver.

* * *

Meanwhile, Foyle was saying good-night to Elizabeth Lewes. He had dreaded finding himself alone with her a second time, but he found it was bearable as long as he could retreat to his same proper manners. She was apologizing for Paige's tactless comments about Foyle being a policeman and his son being at Oxford. It reminded him of another time—the only time—she had belittled his profession. That time, her comments had ended their relationship. He wondered why she was apologizing for Paige's behavior, when it was so similar to her own. Did she regret what she had done? It didn't matter now; all of that was long ago.

But Elizabeth wouldn't let him go so easily. As he turned to slip out the door, she stopped him, saying, "Christopher, can we meet? I can call on you tomorrow afternoon."

"Why?" he asked, rather bluntly. "Is there really anything to be said?"

"Yes," she said. " _So much._ "

Foyle's face fell.  _What could she want with him, now?_  he wondered.

"I'd  _like_  to see you," Elizabeth pleaded. "Could I? Would you be there?" She looked at him with round, beseeching eyes. He had seen this look before.

As Lewes called for his wife from the other room, Foyle muttered a reluctant "Yes." Perhaps it was better to see her once and for all, since she had her mind so set on it. He would prefer having her over to his house, instead of these furtive conversations in the foyer with her husband lurking in the background.

True to her word, Sam was waiting in the yard in the Wolseley when he came out. She was slumped down in her seat and her eyes were closed. Foyle knocked on the glass and Sam jumped up suddenly, reaching to open his door.

"Hello," she said. "Sorry, I was just sleeping a little."

"I am sure you are tired," he said, getting in to the car.

"Yes, a bit," she admitted.

"Have you found a place to stay yet?" he asked. He had been wondering about her all evening, and had finally decided that, if she didn't have anywhere to go, he would dare to suggest that she stay with him.

"Oh, yes, I'm being put up by a friend. Lucky thing, too. I thought I might have to sleep in the Wolseley tonight!"

"Good," he said. "You know, Sam, I was going to suggest that you—"

She interrupted him. "How was the dinner party?"

"The dinner party?" he repeated, a bit confused. He was about to tell her that he wanted her to stay with him, but she had foiled him. "Oh, it was interesting," he said noncommittally.

"You don't sound too interested," she said.

"Oh, well, it was a motley bunch of people, myself included. The only ones that I had met before were the Lewes, and it had been ages since I'd seen either of them."

"Hmmm," Sam said. "How do you know them?"

"Really, Sam!" Foyle responded sharply. " _Must_  you ask me questions about every person of my acquaintance? I've lived long enough to know quite a few people in Hastings. It shouldn't surprise you that I know this barrister."

Sam was silent in response. His words were hurtful; he sounded like her boss again, and he sounded angry. She was disappointed that he still hadn't seemed very concerned about where she was staying.

"Just drive me home, Sam," he said. "It has been a long day for both of us. I don't want to say anything else that I might regret later. I'm sorry that I spoke harshly just now. There is a lot on my mind."

 _There's a lot on my mind, too. You, especially,_  Sam thought, still a bit resentful.  _If only you would bother to ask me what I'm thinking._

The rest of the drive to Steep Lane was painfully quiet. Foyle stared out the window as Sam concentrated on the road. It was difficult to drive with shuttered headlights and she had to be especially careful, going twice as slowly as she normally did. She thought that they would never reach Foyle's house and was relieved when she finally was able to cut the engine and stop the car in front of his doorway. Foyle paused a moment before opening the door.

"Sam—" he began."I've said something wrong, haven't I?"

"Yes," Sam said, her face flat.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," she said coldly.

"Good-night, then," he said. "I'll see you here tomorrow?" She nodded without taking her eyes off of the dashboard.

Foyle put on his hat and stepped out of the car. She watched him as he walked up his steps and opened the door. Briefly, Sam put her head down on the steering wheel in frustration. She had not thought that he would take her "no" so seriously. Of course she wanted to talk to him! Part of her wanted to run after him and knock on his door, while another part of her wanted him to know just how angry she was with him.

Her pride kept her in her seat.

A minute later, she started the engine up and headed back to the station, where Milner was waiting for her.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

Milner's house was tidier than Sam had imagined it would be. It was hard for her to remember that he was married; he worked such late nights at the station that his existence resembled that of a bachelor more than a married man. Then again, Sam suspected that all was not well between Milner and his wife. The one time she had met Jane, outside of the church on the day of national prayer, she had been struck by how ordinary-looking and dour Jane was, when compared with her tall, dashing husband.  _A true Plain Jane,_  Sam had thought at the time. Sam knew that many women would not have considered Paul Milner to be attractive, what with his missing lower leg and his dragging step, but she thought that the sergeant was very striking. It pleased her to see that, even in his wife's absence, he had kept up the housekeeping.

The first night Sam stayed there, they did not say much to each other besides "goodnight," both turning in at around midnight. Milner's spare room had a comfortable bed, cheery yellow curtains, and a host of lace doilies on every available surface. Someone—Jane, likely—had taken a lot of trouble to make the room hospitable. Sam wondered if the Milners had many guests; she doubted it. Troubled couples rarely invited other people to share in their home life.

It felt surprisingly comfortable to greet Milner in the morning and take breakfast together. Sam chatted away in her usual fashion and Milner seemed at ease. She had to leave early, to go pick up Foyle, and she was somewhat relieved that their breakfast had not dragged on. Part of her still thought that it was a poor decision to accept Paul's invitation, and she preferred to spend as little time in his house as possible.  _Back to calling the billeting office today,_  Sam thought.

But Sam had little opportunity to search for accommodations the next day, as Foyle was back to his usual business of crime-solving and prowling the town for witnesses. She spent nearly the entire day out of the office, driving her boss in the Wolseley. Things were strained between the two of them, starting from the moment she picked him up in the morning.

"Good morning, Sam," he had said, in a neutral tone.

"Good morning, Sir," she had replied, starting the engine.

"I trust that your lodgings were acceptable last night?" he asked. He hoped that she would display some sign that they were less than desirable, and thus let him offer her his house instead. But Sam remained impassive.

"Perfectly acceptable. I slept like a baby," she said. It was true; she had slept well in Milner's spare room.

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, not quite telling the truth. "Sam, might we have a word together, tonight?"

"Tonight?" she asked. "Why—I don't know. What were you thinking?"

"A drink," he suggested. "At my place."

"Well, my friend won't like it if I come back late," she said. "You see, there's  
a chance—"

He interrupted her.

"We can do it another time if tonight is not convenient for you."

"I would like that," she said. "Another time." She  _did_  like the idea of spending another evening in Foyle's sitting room, but she feared what would happen if Foyle pried too closely into her present living arrangements. It would be awkward if he asked to accompany her back to her friend's house, not knowing that it was Milner, or if he pressed her too closely. She knew what kind of investigator Foyle was, and she did not believe that she was up to fielding his questions.

Foyle, for his part, felt that something had changed between the two of them since the day before.  _Had it only been yesterday that she lost her house?_  he thought to himself. So much had happened since then—a dead man found on the beach, a German spy washed ashore—what would happen next? Sam was acting as if she were his driver again, and nothing more. Foyle yearned to ask her what was wrong, but he knew from experience that it could be best to leave a woman alone when she was agitated.

 _This_  was the moment that Foyle recalled several years later, when he could not help but admit that he was still in love with his driver, and that he had lost her due to his own short-sightedness. There, together in the car, what he should have done was to ask Sam to take the long way to the station, ignoring her puzzled expression. He should have told her that he wanted to help her in any way he could, including offering her his spare room if she would let him. He should have put his hand on her shoulder and reminded her of how brave she had been after the bombing, and of how precious she was to him. She might have stopped the car then, to allow herself to finally cry the tears that she had been holding back. He would have comforted her with his words and his kisses, and they would have driven back to the police station with a renewed sense of their care for one another.

But Foyle did none of these things.

Instead, he started to fill Sam in on the details of the dinner party and how they might be connected to the dead tinker. He was so accustomed to talking over his cases with Sam that he hardly noticed that her replies were briefer than usual, or that she asked him hardly any questions. It was a knotty mystery to untangle, and before he knew it, Foyle fell silent again, caught up in his own speculations about the case. Sam drove on to the station, crestfallen that he had not asked her more about her situation, but too proud to show it.

* * *

The rest of the day passed in a rush as they drove all over Hastings, and Sam was looking forward to spending an evening in Milner's company. Although her boss continued to confuse her, she knew where things stood between her and Milner. He was attractive, that she had to admit, but he had none of the spark that she felt with Foyle. Milner was much closer in age to Sam than Foyle was, but his solemnity ran counter to her inclinations towards mischief and rebellion. Moreover, she had never seen him participate in the kind of verbal sparring that she and Foyle regularly engaged in with each other. Sam lived for the witty exchanges that Foyle had perfected, and constantly sought out opportunities to make the older man respond to her questions or comments. From what she had gathered, Foyle liked her little games, too. And he had a few tricks up his own sleeve, as had been apparent when he had touched her knee at the restaurant. It had surprised her, but not alarmed her: she knew that he would never do anything more than give her a bit of a tease, as long as they were in public together. At spare moments in her day, when they were apart, she liked to think about the things that Foyle might do if they were alone together.

His kisses made her want more—more kisses, more touching, more of  _him_ , most of all. She longed to know more about Christopher Foyle. That is why she had pressed him to tell her about the Lewes; there was so much of his life that she was not privy to, that she could never understand.  _Perhaps I am just too young for him_ , she thought.  _Why could he possibly want to spend time with me?_

It made her flush to think of the reasons why most older men, when they had a chance, sought out younger women. But so far, Foyle had been clear in his intentions towards her. She had to trust in what he had said, no matter what other people might have told her about older men. She and he had worked together long enough for her to know what kind of man he was: clever, reserved, honourable, kind, passionate even—and stubborn. She wished that he were not quite so stubborn.

It was just as well that she was staying at Milner's place that night. It made her feel topsy-turvy to spend too much time with Foyle. She felt that she could relax in the sergeant's company, whereas if she had seen Foyle that night, the conversation would have been tense, to say the least.

Secretly she thought that Milner took himself too seriously for his own good, but she had to admit that he was a very decent man, and she appreciated his invitation to stay with him. But he could not hold a candle to Foyle in her mind, and that was why she was not at all concerned about spending a few nights in his home, except for how other people might respond if they knew. But Sam did not intend to let anyone know, if she could help it. She had not even rung her parents yet to tell them about the bombing; the moment they heard that she was out on the street, they were sure to order her back to Lyminster. After fighting so hard to stay in Hastings, Sam would not let anything—not even a German bomb—prevent her from performing her duty as Foyle's driver.

* * *

Sam was determined to be a good houseguest for Milner, so she offered to make dinner for both of them that evening. He was impressed by her choice of recipe— _coq au vin—_ and she didn't bother to tell him that it was the only thing she knew how to make, other than a ham-and-cheese omelet.

There was quite a lot of detective work that day that Sam hadn't been privy to, and she did her best to pry the information out of Milner.

"So, how's the case going?" Sam asked between bites. "You  _are_  lucky, you know, getting to rummage round all of those dead bodies." Milner thought that this was an odd thing for a girl to say, but then again, Samantha Stewart certainly wasn't like most girls that he knew. _You wouldn't catch Jane anywhere near a dead body_ , he thought with grim amusement.

"Well, we're fairly sure it wasn't suicide." Milner was pleased to have the chance, for once, to tell Sam what was going on. Too often, he had felt left out when Foyle talked his cases over with Sam before informing his sergeant on the details first. "But then that leaves the question:  _Who would want to kill Richard Hunter? And why?"_

"If his son was in the AFS," Sam surmised, "and they were the ones doing the looting—"

"—Well, you see," Milner interrupted, "That's another mystery. Henry Jamison. He's guilty, I'm certain of it. But at your landlady's house, he took her coins, and her necklace, but he left behind a valuable pocket watch. Why?"

Sam thought about it. "Maybe Richard Hunter knew the answer, and was going to tell, and that is why he had to be silenced." With great gusto, she took another bite of chicken and shrugged. Milner nodded back.

"Have you managed to find anywhere yet?" he asked, unexpectedly. Sam looked up at him in alarm.

"You're not kicking me out, are you?" she asked, partly in jest.  _Of course he's not kicking me out,_  Sam thought. _He was just hinting that I can't stay here forever._

Paul Milner looked chagrined. "No, no, not at all!" he rushed to reassure her. "Actually, I rather  _like_  having you here." Sam hoped that he did not like it too much.

"Mr. Foyle would have a  _fit_  if he found out," she said, wondering how Milner would react to that. He probably still thought that Mr. Foyle was looking out for Sam on her father's request.

Milner chuckled. "Yes, I don't think he'd be entirely happy," he said.

"Well, I  _am_  looking," Sam said with her brightest smile. Milner nodded and returned to his food.

The radio, which neither had been paying much attention to earlier, began to play a song that Sam recognized. The bright notes of a trumpet sounded through the apartment, and she felt an irresistible urge to get up and dance. Music, dance, movement—they had always been the cure for her sorrows. If only she weren't stuck at a table with Milner! He was such a sourpuss. Sam thought regretfully how different it might have been if she had been dining with Foyle. She didn't know if he liked dancing, but she couldn't imagine that he would have begrudged her a dance.

"I love this one," she said, getting up from the table to turn the volume up.

Milner watched her, admiringly. He liked her spontaneity, her ease with herself and with others. The last few months, Milner had felt anything but comfortable with himself. At work, he still suspected that he was Foyle's charity case, and he dreaded his boss finding out that Milner was not as smart as Foyle seemed to think he was. At home, Jane had kept him on pins and needles, ignoring him one minute and criticizing him the next. It was a relief to be relaxed in his own home again. He wished that he could have the innocent joy in dancing that Sam had, but he had not felt the same about his body since he had lost his leg in Norway. He was awkward, in his body and around Jane, and he longed for the kind of physical gracefulness that Sam effortlessly embodied. Entranced, he watched her begin to dance, snapping her fingers and swaying her hips.

"Will you dance with me?" she asked, playfully. She always loved dancing; it didn't matter who her partner was, even if he  _was_  a one-legged police sergeant.

"No," Milner said, a bit startled by her request.

" _Dance_  with me," Sam entreated.

"No," Milner said again.

"Don't be such a cold fish!" Sam cried. "I've been bombed, I've lost my house, I just lost  _all_  of my possessions, and here I am, stuck with you!"

That last comment riled Milner. Was he really such poor company, then?

"Oh, really?" he asked, only half-serious now.

"I just want one  _little_  dance, that's all," Sam insisted, still dancing by herself, her arms raised as if she were waiting for him to join in as her partner. Milner decided to appease her. She was right, he was wrong: Sam was not immune from disaster, she was not as innocent of tragedy as he had supposed. She was correct to remind him that she had just been bombed, displaced, made an unwelcome houseguest. The least he could do was to grant her wish. He stood up to join her.

"All right, I'll have a go," he said.

Unbeknownst to both of them, at that very moment Jane Milner had opened the front door. She had decided to return from Wales, quite suddenly really, after she and her sister had fought about the proper way to dress a roast. In recent months she had not bothered to tell Paul much about her comings and goings, and she had not considered it necessary to inform him that she was coming back to her own house. It was quite a shock, however, to walk in the front door and hear the sound of music in the kitchen and two distinct voices, laughing together. One was Paul's, the other belonged to a woman.

"But I'm warning you," Jane could hear him say—playfully, almost flirtatiously— "I was never much of a dancer."

Jane, a vain and jealous woman by nature, was enraged.  _Who in the hell has he brought here to_ _ **my**_ _house?_  she thought to herself. Even if she didn't want Paul to touch her, the idea that he might enjoy himself in the company of another woman was enough to make her want to wring his neck.  _After all I've put up with, too… the letters from Norway, the telegram that he was injured, the visits to the hospital, that dreadful prosthesis._ Jane had already felt betrayed by her husband's injury; she had married a strong, athletic man, someone whom she expected to care for her for the rest of her life. Instead, she had ended up with a cripple who couldn't even walk straight. What's worse, she had caught him crying at odd times, over the strangest things, like the smell of burning wood. And at night, she often woke to the sound of him crooning like a banshee, caught in a nightmare. He was not the man he once was.

What right did Paul have to enjoy himself when she could never have a part in his enjoyment?

Jane moved closer to the kitchen door, hearing the rest of her husband's sentence as she watched him— _the gimp!_ —dancing with a blonde in uniform.

"I was never much of a dancer," he said, "even with the leg." Jane wondered how he could make light of his defect in such a way.

"That's just an excuse," the girl said to him, swinging in time to the music. He was behind her, a glass still in his hand, and she was dancing facing away from him. One tiny step back and the girl would have pressed her backside completely against his front. Jane had seen that kind of dancing before, in the kinds of dance halls that her sister had dragged her to on occasion, and it disgusted her. What disgusted her even more was to see how her husband actually appeared to be  _liking_  it. The girl looked up at Paul over her shoulder, smiling at him.

"No, it's true,  _really_ , I can't dance," he insisted.  _He is right_ , Jane thought.  _He never_ _ **was**_ _much of a dancer. At least not with me._

"I used to love going to dance halls," the girl said. "When I was in London for  
training—"

Jane could not stand to watch them another second. She opened wide the kitchen door and came in. Milner spotted her first, and stopped dancing. Sam soon copied him, growing still.

"Jane!" he said, very much surprised.

"What are you doing?" Jane asked quietly.

"Jane, this isn't what you think," Paul said. Sam smiled, then caught herself, and looked away.  _This is exactly why I should not have come here,_ she thought.  _Milner will get in trouble and it is all my fault._

Jane stared fixedly at her husband. She could not imagine anything he could say that would excuse his behavior. He had entertained another woman in their home, while she was away—what more was there to know?

She turned and left the kitchen. Milner ran after her, calling her name.

"Jane, I promise you it's not what you think it is!" he said.

"And just what do you think  _I_  think it is?" she hissed back at him.

"It's just Sam, Jane. You've met her before." Yes, Jane had met her before, that day at church. She had not recognized Sam until Milner reminded her. But knowing that this was a woman who worked with her husband did nothing to calm Jane's temper.

" _Just_  Sam?" she asked. "You say that as if she were your sister!"

"She might as well be," he said. "We work together."

"Yes, I know that, do you think I'm an idiot? So you thought you'd invite her here while I was gone? You thought I would never find out! How many other times have you had her here?"

"Sit down, Jane," Milner said. "Let me explain. Sam's house was bombed by the Jerries…"

* * *

As they spoke, Sam quietly went to the spare room to gather her things. She could not imagine a happy outcome for this situation. The best she could do was leave, and quickly. It did not take long to pack her bag— _at least I am very transportable these days,_  she thought regretfully. But Sam was worried about where she would go now. It would not do to go knocking on Foyle's door at this time of night. Besides, she was not sure that he would welcome seeing her, even if she did beg assistance from him. He had been terribly distracted in the last few days, and Sam suspected that there was more to it than the case.

Sam went to the only place she could think of to stay: the Hastings police station. She let herself in with the key that Foyle had given her, found a spare cell with the night sergeant's help, and tried to settle in for the night. But the cell's cot was hard, the mattress was lumpy and water-stained (she shuddered to think about who had last used it, or what he had used it for), and a bright light shone in through the cell's sole window.

It was a long, cold, lonely night for Samantha Stewart.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle thought that he had made it clear to Elizabeth Lewes that there was nothing more for the two of them to say to each other, when he last saw her at the dinner party for Howard Paige. But then she had practically begged him to let her call on him, and though it went against his inclinations to do so—Lewes was a friend of his, after all—he consented. Experience had taught him that sometimes it was best to acquiesce to a woman's plans, especially if it were possible that she would never carry through on them. And so he had hoped that Elizabeth would forget that she had ever suggested the idea, and leave him in peace.

Mrs. Lewes, however, was not one to give up the opportunity to talk to Christopher Foyle in his own home.

* * *

Driving through the Hastings countryside with Foyle at her side, Sam tried to keep up a normal stream of conversation. But despite her efforts to sound interested in the murder investigation, she could not hide her sleepiness. The cell cot really had been terribly uncomfortable, but more than that, her mind had kept her up the night before. It pained her to be responsible for the fight that had ensued between Milner and his wife, and her thoughts kept going back to them. Milner had looked happy for just a brief moment, when she had asked him to dance. But that innocent pleasure had lasted all too briefly, and Sam felt the loss on his behalf.

The war had barely started, and already it had changed so many lives.

For Sam, war had given her the excuse that she needed to leave her parents' home in Lyminster and make a life for herself elsewhere. She had grown up thinking that she would only escape from the vicarage if someone put a ring on her finger, but the W.T.C. had given her the opportunity to get out, on her own, without the help of her father or any other man. Except—there  _was_  another man. Sam asked herself if she had, unwittingly, constricted herself even further by becoming involved with Mr. Foyle.

_What about Mr. Foyle's help?_  Sam asked herself.  _I would not be here still without it._  It was all so confusing. He was the reason she had been pulled from the W.T.C. to work in the police—he had requested a driver, after all—and he was the reason that she had wanted to stay in Hastings, when her father asked her to go home. He was also the reason—indirectly, with Milner's help—why her father had allowed her to stay. And Foyle was the reason Sam was now doubting her own independence. Her life in Hastings was not independent; it was inextricably tied up with that of the man who sat in the passenger seat.

These thoughts were too much for Sam to dwell on with only three hours sleep behind her. She yawned widely. Foyle, ever sharp-eyed, perceived it immediately. A nagging feeling persisted in the back of his thoughts: all was not well between him and Sam, and he was at least partly to blame for Sam's exhaustion. She should not have been tired. Not only was it dangerous for her to be driving, but he felt ashamed that he had not been able to offer her the comfort she deserved, after she was bombed out of her house.

"Tired?" he asked her.

"I—I didn't get much sleep last night, Sir," she said, shaking her head as if to wake herself up.

"Still at your friend's?" he asked, with more than an idle curiosity. Sam looked uncomfortable and paused before speaking.

"I don't think so," she said.  _No, I don't think I can count on going back to the Milners'_ — _ever again,_  she thought to herself. She wondered what Foyle would think of her cryptic answer. He was a detective—for all she knew, he had already figured out everything on his own.

Foyle responded with his usual sense of humor. "If you could stay awake just till we get there, I'd be grateful." What he wanted to say, but didn't, was,  _I hate to see you so uncomfortable. Please, can't I do something for you?_

Later, when she saw Milner at the station, Sam apologized for what had happened.

"Sam! Don't worry, it wasn't your fault," he said, sounding more concerned for her than for himself. He was used to Jane's fits; Sam was not. "I  _invited_  you!"

She took a step closer to him, in case anyone could hear them.

"Did your wife understand… my situation?"

"Yes. Eventually." He snorted. "Where did you go?"

"Oh, I found somewhere," Sam said. "Just around the corner, actually," she added.

"Oh, that's convenient," he said.

"Very. But it's a temporary billet. I can't stay there long."

"Let me know if I can help you in any way," he said. "I know that my help didn't turn out to be worth much this time," he smiled sadly, "but I hate to think of you out on the street."

"Oh, I don't expect it will come to that," Sam said, cheerily.

"Good," Milner said, relieved. He had taken on too much by asking Sam to stay with him, and it was just as well that she was fine on her own.

* * *

A few hours later, Sam dropped Foyle off at his house on Steep Lane. They had passed a pleasant afternoon, of sorts, investigating the disappearance of a local journalist who appeared to have been dragged from the car where he was sleeping. Milner had not joined them, and Sam was pleased to have a bit of time to herself with Foyle. He was ever the professional, discussing nothing but the case while on duty, but she noticed how he took the time to teach her to "read" the scene in front of them for evidence. It was something that he had started to do of late, to teach Sam what to look for when they were at a crime scene. He had begun to do this even before Sam's father had shown up looking for her, before he had asked her in for a drink, before they had kissed. Sam had relished the attention that he paid her during these moments, the obvious care that he took to teach her well, and the pride that he exhibited when she reached a plausible conclusion. Had this, then, been the first sign of interest on his behalf? Had this been Foyle's way of making the two of them closer, as colleagues rather than superior officer and driver? Sam wondered at this now.

She was reluctant to mention to Foyle that she still hadn't found lodgings. To do so now, she thought, would make it look as if she were wrangling for an invitation, when he had had plenty of opportunities to offer to help her, and had not. So Sam stayed mum on the subject, and gave Foyle a rather stiff "good-bye" when they reached Steep Lane.

Foyle wondered at the change in her tone—not a week earlier, they had dined together in Eastborne and had shared not a few passionate kisses on the bonnet of the Wolseley—but he chalked it up to their not having had a moment alone together since then. He would soon remedy  _that,_  he thought.

"Is everything all right, Sam?" he asked cautiously.

She looked down at the steering wheel. "Yes, of course."

He grunted. "Really?" he asked, dubiously.

"Yes, why not?" she said.

"Because your house was bombed, your friend died, and it looks like you haven't been able to sleep in days. Anything else I forgot to mention? Are you having nightmares, Sam?" He said these last words softly, gently. He was concerned about her.

"Nightmares?" she asked, surprised. "No, not that."

"Then?"

"It's nothing, Mr. Foyle—"

He raised an eyebrow at her use of his surname.

"Hmm."

"…It's just… my friend and I, we had—an argument—and it is rather uncomfortable where I'm staying just now."

"I see," he said, removing his hat and placing it on his lap. "Sam—I didn't want to suggest this before—didn't want you to get the wrong idea—but you can stay with me for a few days, until the billeting office finds you something. What do you say?" He turned and smiled at her. He wanted to embrace her, there in the car, but Sam sat stiffly behind the wheel and had hardly looked at him. She sighed and he put his hand on hers.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sam said. She appeared uneasy.

"Why not?"

"If my father ever found out—if anyone at the station ever knew—what would they say? I'd be back in Lyminster in a wink!" Her tone darkened considerably as she considered this outcome. "And then there's you, Mr. Foyle." She looked down and then up again. "I just don't know where things stand with you right now."

Foyle paused before answering. He knew that it was important for him to say the right thing, yet he was not sure of what she expected from him. Things  _had_  been different between the two of them ever since she had left her flat. The Hunter murder was turning out to be a complicated case, and they had not had the luxury of spending time together outside of work.

"Have your feelings changed towards me, Sam?" he asked, bluntly.

Now Sam was the one who didn't know what to say. She feared lest he had had a change of heart, and was trying to let her down easy. She sighed.

"Sam?" he asked again.

"I really don't know!" she said, loudly. "I don't know what is happening between us. My life is all turned upside down. I need some time alone—to think!"

"So what you're saying is—not everything is tickety-boo, eh?" he said, rather sarcastically.

"No, it's damn well not!" she retorted. "Sometimes I think I would have been better off going back with my father, after all. Then I wouldn't have been here when the bomb fell and I wouldn't have—" she stopped, abruptly.

"You wouldn't have what?" he asked, rather sternly.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm tired. I need to get going. Thank you for letting me off early today. I'll see you tomorrow, same time?"

"Sam," he said. "I don't regret your staying in Hastings. Is that what you thought?"

"I—I don't really know what to think or say, Mr. Foyle. Please, let me go now."

"Very well, then," Foyle said, opening his car door. "Get some rest."

"Good-bye, Sir," she said.

"Good-bye, Sam."

* * *

Soon after Foyle arrived home, there was a knock on his door. He thought that Sam might have changed her mind and come after him, but when he looked through the window, he saw that the Wolseley was nowhere in sight. Instead, Elizabeth Lewes was on his front steps. With a feigned smile, he opened the door. He was in no mood right then for the coming visit, but he could hardly turn her away. She was an old friend, after all.

"You said I could come and see you," she said, once he had invited her into the parlor.

"Yes," he admitted, impatient for the seeing to be over and done with.

"It seems so strange, seeing so much of you so suddenly, after such a long time," Elizabeth began.

Foyle was silent. He could not honestly respond that he was  _happy_  to see her, so he said nothing.

"How is the investigation?" she continued.

"It's coming along," he said tersely, forcing a smile. He wished that she would leave. There was nothing else for them to say to each other. He had accepted that, long ago.

Tentatively, Elizabeth spoke. "You don't think Mr. Hunter killed himself, do you? Do you think Mr. Paige had something to do with it?"

"Well, it's—it's—not impossible," Foyle equivocated. He had not asked her to sit down, hoping that the meeting would be short, and he remained standing to signal this wish.

"If America  _does_  come into the war, it will be at least partly due to him. He's terribly important, Arthur says."

"Have you told—Arthur—that you're here?" Foyle asked, reminding her that there was a third party of concern to both of them.

"No," Elizabeth admitted. "He's in London. In chambers."

_How very convenient,_  Foyle thought.  _And so you come and visit me when your husband is away._

"You know who killed that poor man, don't you?" she continued.

"Is this why you have come here, to talk about this case?" he asked pointedly. He would prefer that she got on with the real purpose of her visit, rather than waste more time in idle chit-chat. His mind was still on Sam, and he wanted time to himself to think about what to do next.

"No, no, of course not," she said, flustered. "I-I came to see  _you_."

_I think I would have preferred to talk about the case,_  Foyle thought.  _At least then you might have told me something useful._

Elizabeth took the liberty of seating herself on the sofa. She went on, "I felt so—so— _wretched_ , sitting at the dinner table, talking about the war, and America, and that peculiar doctor going on about supplies…."

Foyle waited.

"…When all I wanted, really, was to be alone with  _you_."

Foyle did not quite know how to respond to this. He tried to control his face, but he couldn't help the grimace that escaped. He moved to sit down across from her, in his own chair.

"Elizabeth—" he started.

"How  _are_  you, Christopher?" she interrupted. "I mean—are you  _happy_?"

He did not know what to say to this woman. How could he tell her that she had long ceased to be in any way responsible for his happiness—in fact, that she had refused such a responsibility? He suspected that her question had more to do with her own state than with his; he knew where he stood as far as happiness was concerned. Some days were more difficult than others, but several things had happened of late to make him believe, again, in the importance of life apart from work and war. He could not explain this to Elizabeth, nor did he want to. She had no right to come here like this, with her confessions masked as friendly concern.

"Well, uh—we're at war," he stammered, sticking to the impersonal. "And I do worry about Andrew."

"I'm not happy," she said.

_It wouldn't take a detective to figure_ _ **that**_ _out,_ Foyle thought, rather meanly.

"I have been married to Arthur for twenty years. It was our wedding anniversary, a week ago. He's been very kind to me—he's a very _kind_  man. But I have never loved him." She paused, the sadness in her voice and in her face. Foyle could not help but feel sorry for her, despite himself. "Not even for a day." She stared intensely at him. "Not the way I loved you."

Foyle pursed his lips, waiting.

"There, I've said it!" Elizabeth exclaimed nervously. Foyle shook his head. She continued almost in a whisper, "Oh, I'm sorry, I sound like something out of Noël Coward." There were tears in her voice.

Foyle took pity on her. "And, uh, you never did like his plays, did you?" he joked. She laughed, bitterly.

"I was  _so_  sorry when I heard about Rosalind, really—I was. I wanted to write—I tried—but all the time, I kept thinking—after she died, maybe—you and I… I—I  _hoped—"_

Foyle interrupted her. "You shouldn't be doing this," he said, embarrassed for her. "It was all  _far_  too long ago. It was all very different then—"

She cut him off: "Everything's different  _now_!"

Foyle stood up, indicating that the conversation was over. "This was a mistake, Elizabeth," he told her firmly.

"No!" she responded, also standing. "I made the mistake years ago, I know that now. Can you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive. We were both very different people then."  _Good God, why didn't she just_ _ **stop**_ _?_

"You asked me to  _marry_  you," she reminded him, as if he could forget.

"Yes, and when your father refused permission for you to marry me, you married Arthur instead." He hated to be cruel, but he had to point out the facts to her. She had already made the decision, for both of them, and he would not turn back time now. Not after Rosalind, not after Sam… "And I understood then the very difficult position you'd been placed in."

"He—he gave me no choice!" she protested. "You don't understand!"  _Haven't I told you that I understood completely how difficult it was for you?_  he thought with frustration.  _What else do you want me to understand?_

"Well, your father understood perfectly well, that a policeman's son was clearly not good enough, and I should never have asked."

Elizabeth looked stricken, defeated. "I  _couldn't_  go against him, Christopher. You knew that."

She had missed his point, entirely. He wasn't angry that she had jilted him; he was angry that she had come to him now, while her husband was away, to confess a longing for him that should have faded long ago. She must have dreamed up a fantasy of him all these years, while she was unhappily living with Lewes, he reflected. But the man he was now was not the starry-eyed boy of twenty-two who had wanted to marry Elizabeth Downs. Nor was he the man of her fantasy, as she soon made clear.

"You have grown very hard," she said, disappointed. Then she jabbed him where it hurt: "Was it Rosalind dying, that did that?"

"No," he said. He knew that he sounded hard to her; that had been his intention. He meant to give her no encouragement. "Losing her changed nothing." He took a deep breath. "Marrying her changed everything."

They both looked at each other.

"But you've got a good husband, and two wonderful sons. But the truth is: we should leave this exactly the way it is. And I'm sorry." He could not help but be moved, not by Elizabeth, but by the memory of his late wife.

"I'm the one who's sorry," Elizabeth said. "You're right, I shouldn't have come. I am  _so_  sorry, Christopher. …I want you to know," she said, stepping closer to him, "that barely a day has gone by, in all these years, when I  _haven't_  been sorry." She took one last, sorrowful look at him before turning to leave.

As she did so, Foyle looked at the photograph of Rosalind that he kept on the side table. An unexpected rush of sadness came over him, such as he had not felt in several years. The front door shut, and Elizabeth left. Foyle was alone again.

He had been absolutely honest with Elizabeth. Marrying Rosalind had changed his life, had changed who he was. He could not go back to being the man— _boy_ , he corrected himself—that he was when he had fallen in love with Elizabeth. Nor could he go back to being the man he was before Rosalind had died. Her death, as well as her life, had changed him. Afterwards, he had thrown himself into his work, hoping to find some recompense or some distraction in being a superior sleuth. But work had never brought the professional recognition that he had hoped for, and had instead provided him with even more frustration and disillusionment. Nevertheless, if there was one thing he had learned from Rosalind, it was to keep looking forward and to welcome the surprising joys that life had to offer, no matter what sorrows it also brought.

Sam's appearance in his life was one such joy, for he had never imagined, at his age, that he would fall in love again, much less with a woman so much younger. But though Sam was young—or, perhaps,  _because_  she was young—she had a way of reminding him of the important things in life. Like hilarity and curiosity and a taste for mayhem; smiles and tea biscuits and "absolutely"; and the soft feel of her woman's body pressed against his, after years of intermittent celibacy.

Foyle sighed. He was completely smitten with his driver, against all his better judgment. He wondered what Hugh Reid would say if he knew. Moreover, he wondered what his son would think.  _Andrew would probably take some vicarious pleasure in the fact that I am stepping out with my young driver,_  Foyle thought,  _because he would see it as evidence of some sort of Foyle prowess. If only he knew that I have never been as active in that arena as he already is. And my intention—whatever Andrew might think—is not to seduce Sam, but to make her happy._

Startled, Foyle reflected on this last thought. He did want to make Sam happy—she certainly made  _him_  feel that way—but he was not certain that he could ever do so. She had flirted with him, welcomed his attentions, even—but would she ever want to marry him? The idea of marriage to Sam secretly thrilled him but he doubted that she would want the same. Sam was too young to tie herself down to an older man. She would want to see more of the world first, meet other men, perhaps travel or go to university. She would not see herself as someone's wife, at least not right away, and Foyle could not imagine offering her anything less honorable than marriage. It did not occur to him that Sam might be amenable to something else.

Foyle poured himself a glass of whisky. The solitary evening stretched before him, and he longed for the dull reverie of drink.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Sam continued to look exhausted in the days that followed, surprising Foyle and even Roberts with her seeming disregard for her appearance. He and Milner were making good progress on several fronts: the German spy who was washed ashore, the missing journalist, Hunter's murder. It was not unusual for them to solve a case, but rarely did they come across such a complicated, misleading set of cases all at once. It kept Foyle busy, but not so busy that he did not see the change in Sam's appearance.

Sam almost felt sorry for the prisoners that had to spend the night in the station, so hard and lumpy was the mattress on the cell cot. She had spent the last few nights twisting and turning for hours, trying to find a comfortable position, before admitting that there was none to be found.

When she came into Foyle's office one morning with her hair in disarray and her uniform wrinkled, he could not help but comment on the change.

"My, you're looking—tired? Are you not sleeping?" He worried that she was having nightmares about the bombing; she wouldn't be the first person to have them. And it would be just like Sam to keep a stiff upper lip and not mention it.

Sam patted her forehead, brushing her hair away from her eyes.

"I'm not sleeping a great deal," she admitted. "I've got a rather hard bed."

"Are you all right to drive?" he asked, concerned.

"Absolutely," she said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Sit down," he said. "I've just got to finish typing this."

"What is it?" she asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down to face him at his desk.

"An arrest report," he explained. They chatted about the key-ring that Foyle had found in Hunter's pocket—Sam identified it as part of a car's gear mesh system—and Foyle pondered a possible connection between Hunter and Howard Paige. He wanted more time to think about it, but Sam was there before him, looking adorable with her tousled hair, and he could not resist the chance to engage her in a brief chat.

"Everything all right, Sam?" he asked, still typing.

"Mmm," she said. Despite her fatigue, she had seemed more relaxed around him, and he had noticed how excited she had been to give him information about the key-ring.  _She is irrepressible,_ Foyle thought.  _Nothing can keep Sam down for long._

"You found a more permanent place to live?" he asked.

"It's being worked out," she said, rather cryptically.

"My offer still stands," he said. Sam blushed. "You  _do_  know which offer I mean, don't you?" he inquired. "You can stay with me if there's trouble with you being at your friend's house."

"It's not that," she protested. "It's just—I don't know—that just seems like rather too much right now, if you understand what I mean." Despite himself, Foyle felt hurt.

"No, Sam. What  _do_  you mean?" She blushed again, wringing her hands.

"Well, we haven't talked yet about—you know— _us—_ since I left my flat."

He nodded. "Is that what has been troubling you?" he asked.

"Yes. I want to know—"

Just then, Milner's form appeared in the doorway.

"Ready with that report, Mr. Foyle?" he asked jovially. Foyle looked up from the desk, surprised to see his sergeant.

"Report?" He sounded confused. "Oh, right, give me one minute. Just finishing it. Sam, do see if you can scrounge up some biscuits for later."

"Yes, Sir," she said, rising to leave.

* * *

The next night, after writing his report on Howard Paige—two separate reports, actually, one for now, one for  _after_  the war—Foyle took a stroll through the station house. He sometimes did this, when he had to work late, just to make sure that everything was in its place. To his surprise, he spotted a light shining from under one of the jail cells, yet Rivers had not mentioned anything to him about keeping a prisoner there just then.  _He must have forgotten to tell me, with the excitement of solving Hunter's murder and going after Paige today,_ Foyle reasoned.

He walked over to the cell. The door was open— _not a prisoner, then_ —and Foyle got quite a shock when he saw Samantha Stewart calmly lying on the cot, reading a book.

"Sam?" he said, coming in. Sam pulled her legs over the bed to sit up. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, it's a long story really," she started. "You'd be amazed at how many hotels and guesthouses are full. I've spoken to the billeting officer and although I  _should_  take priority, there just  _isn't_  anything." Foyle was flabbergasted.  _So, she had been staying here, when she could so easily have stayed with me!_ He thought to himself.

"So, you haven't found anywhere else to live?" he asked.

She shook her head. "The long and short of it is, I've ended up here."

"You  _can't_  sleep here," he insisted. She shook her head.

"It's not so bad," she said. "Though the mattress is a bit—hard. It's not really a mattress. It's more a sort of  _plank._ "

"Oh, for God's sake,  _really,_ " Foyle said. "We have been through this before." He looked away from her. "Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again: come stay with me. If it doesn't bother you, it doesn't bother me. You can use the back room at my house. Andrew isn't there. Just until you get yourself sorted out— _if_  you like."

"Oh!" Sam said. "I'm sorry, I thought—I thought you wanted me to stay with you—in your b—I mean—Oh, I'm so sorry. I misunderstood completely." She broke off suddenly.

"What?" He exclaimed, finally understanding why she had refused his previous invitations. "You thought I'd ask you to stay in  _my_  room, with  _me_?" he asked, shocked.

Sam nodded sheepishly.

"What kind of man do you think I am?" he asked, heatedly. "No, no, no, Miss Stewart, as long as you  _are_  Miss Stewart, you will sleep—and I mean  _sleep_ , dream, snooze, what-have-you—in your own room." He smiled at her. "No one has stayed in the back room for ages, but I promise you there will be clean sheets. And the mattress is much softer than the board you've been lying on." He winked at her. "Would you like to?" he asked, expectantly.

"Could I, Sir? Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes. Just—do me a favor. I know I don't need to ask, but I'll say it anyway—don't mention this to any of the others. They really wouldn't approve, you know."

"No," Sam said, solemnly. "I can be very discreet."

"Good," Foyle said. "Come on." She packed her suitcase quickly and he carried it for her down the hall, out to the Wolseley. Sam was almost beside herself with excitement and relief. "One more thing, Sam."

"Yes?"

"Please stop calling me 'Sir' when we're off duty. You can call me 'Christopher' or just plain 'Foyle,' if you like." He put his hand on her shoulder, emphasizing the intimacy between the two of them.

"I like 'Foyle' best," she said. "It suits you."

* * *

Sam offered to cook for both of them that night. She readily found the ingredients for  _coq au vin_  in Foyle's kitchen, and set about preparing the dish while he went to tidy up the back room.

Part of her felt like she was repeating her stay with Milner all over again—the hush-hushness of it all, the offer to make the same dish, the fear that someone (Andrew, this time), might come back and find them out. But whereas preparing a meal with Milner had felt like they were mess-hall chums, Sam couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if she cooked dinner for Foyle regularly. The state of his kitchen was appalling—dust on some of the glasses, stale bread in the pantry, milk that was about to turn—and the man clearly needed someone to take care of him. She could not fathom why he had not hired a housekeeper before now. How did he keep his suits so immaculately clean and pressed, then? Perhaps he sent them out.

Sam enjoyed her musings about Foyle's home life. Every object she came across in his house told her something about him, from the paintings on his wall to the brand of whisky he preferred. Setting herself up in his kitchen, Sam felt closer to him than she had felt in a long time. It was a sign that he trusted her, to let her come into his house and take charge of the meal without supervision.

It wasn't that Sam did not like the domestic arts, it was just that there had always been so many more interesting things to learn when she was growing up, like how to milk a cow or identify a birdsong. And despite what she had told Andrew about not wanting to knit balaclavas for His Majesty's Forces, Sam was actually quite the hand at needlework. But while she loved to eat, she generally preferred that someone else did the cooking.

In the present circumstances, however, Sam grew warm thinking of what it meant to cook for  _him_ , for Foyle.  _The surest way to a man's heart is through his stomach,_  the old saying went. Cooking for a man was an intimate proposition, there was no doubt about it. She had avoided thinking about that when she had stayed with Milner, but there, someone else had cleared ruled the kitchen. In Foyle's case, however, the absence of a regular cook was only too apparent.

Sam wondered what else he was missing in his life. Someone to take care of him in other ways, too? Someone to listen to him when he was frustrated about the direction a case was going—or  _not_  going. Someone to admire the fish that he caught, to know just how to grill them, with just the right amount of lemon and salt. Someone to put flowers on his dresser, to cheer him with a funny story, to get him out of Hastings on holiday. Sam hoped that she could be this person. The only aspect that troubled her was that, usually, this kind of person took the guise of a spouse.

As she was thinking about this, Foyle came into the kitchen to check on her progress.

"Finding everything you need?" he asked. Sam made a face. "What is it?"

"You don't cook much, do you?" she asked.

"No-o-o," he drawled. "Why?"

"When was the last time you bought milk and bread?"

"Hmmm…last week?" He grinned at her.

"Would you mind awfully if I went to the grocer's tomorrow and picked up a few things? We could combine our ration tickets. It would be easier that way."

To himself, Foyle wondered how long she was planning to stay. He didn't want her to leave right away, but on the other hand, it wouldn't do for her to pay him an extended visit. He thought better of saying anything and simply nodded to her. Sam turned back to the stovetop, where the chicken was simmering away. At least there was wine in Foyle's cupboard, so this  _coq_  was complete.

Foyle watched her examine the pot of chicken, turning over each piece so that it would cook evenly. In the absence of a proper apron, she had tied a large dishtowel around her waist, protecting her uniform. She concentrated intensely on the work at hand, and Foyle found her fascinating to watch, just as he enjoyed watching her drive. There in his kitchen, however, she was more relaxed than he had seen her in the Wolseley.  _Could it be_ , he wondered,  _that they were back to the way they had been? Could Sam actually be enjoying herself here with him?_  He certainly hoped so.

Sam turned and caught him staring at her.

"Like what you see?" she asked, playfully.

He gaped at her. Kissing her was foremost on his mind but he feared her reaction, given the curt words that she had directed at him in the last few days.

"Very much," he said, somewhat reserved with his enthusiasm.

"Want to try it?" she asked. He was confused for a moment; then he understood that she was referring to the dish.

"Yes, please," he said, coming closer to her. She scooped out some broth and held the wooden spoon up to his lips. He raised an eyebrow at her as he took a sip. A bit of broth dribbled down his chin and Sam raised her dishtowel to dab at it.

"Sorry, clumsy me," she said apologetically, wiping his face.

It was an intimate gesture, one that signaled her acceptance of him and the place that he was coming to occupy in her life. Foyle grasped her hand before she could move it away. He felt a physical spark pass between the two of them and Sam instinctively pulled back from the shock. But she kept looking at him, smiling brightly, inviting him to come closer. He stared at her, transfixed. She stepped forward and planted a lingering kiss on his lips, then pulled away quickly and appeared to concentrate intensely on the dish at hand. Foyle was surprised and touched by her gesture.

"Thank you," Foyle said softly, shutting his eyes momentarily.

"You're welcome," Sam responded, still looking at the stove.

"Care to tell me why… ?"

"Nope," she said. "We'll talk later. The pot has to cook for a while longer yet. I thought I might freshen up a bit, before supper?" Foyle nodded.

"I'll show you your room and where the bathroom is," he said. She untied the dishtowel and left it on the rack, following him through the sitting room and into the back of his house. She had never been there before, but she had noticed the corridor that led away from the main room. At the end, there was a small bedroom, sparsely but neatly furnished. A powder room was immediately off of the bedroom.

Foyle showed her where he had stored her things and then cleared his throat. "I suppose you'll want to take a short bath before dinner," he said.

"Oh, rather!" she exclaimed. "I feel as if I'd been wearing this uniform for days." Which, in fact, she had been.

"The bath is upstairs," he said. There was no way to avoid sharing his bathroom with her: it contained the only bathtub in the house. "Come, I'll show you." She followed him out and up the stairs, catching a glimpse of what she assumed was his bedroom before he led her to the main bath.

"There are towels here," he said in a business-like manner, opening a small cupboard. "And soap here. Use whatever you like."

"Thank you," she said.

"Do you want to bathe now?" he asked. "The faucet is a big tricky to make work, so if you want to clean up now, I'll get it started for you."

"Yes, please," Sam said. He plugged the drain and turned on the tap, testing the water's temperature with his hand.

"Now, I'll leave you to it," he said. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."

"Thank you," she said. The idea that she could possibly need him to take a bath struck her as a bit absurd. "I'll come down with you. I need to get my clothes."

"Oh, of course," he said. He had forgotten that she would need to change for dinner in the bathroom. Suddenly an image arose in his mind of what Sam would look like if she had come downstairs straight from the bath, wet and rosy with the heat, wrapped in only a towel. He shook his head to dispel the image. It would be a long night if he didn't keep a calm head on his shoulders. He looked at Sam to see if she had noticed his distraction. She had turned to go downstairs and, this time, it was his time to follow her.

While Sam bathed, Foyle sat in his armchair, trying to read the day's paper. His concentration was poor—his mind kept wandering back to Sam and that damn towel!—and he was relieved when he at last heard the bathroom door open and her footsteps sounded on the stairs. Foyle stood up when she entered the room.

Sam had changed to a green housedress that set off her gold hair to great effect. She had not had time to do more than pat her hair dry, but Foyle was still stunned at the effect that the change of clothes had on her. It had been several months since he had seen his driver out of uniform, and while he found her attractive even in beige and khaki, he had to admit that the dress suited her much better. The close-fitting wartime style showed off her slender waist and her fine arms.

"Thank you," she said. "I feel  _much_  better. And now I'm  _starving_! The chicken smells divine. Shall we eat?" She flashed him a brilliant smile, amused that he couldn't stop looking at her.

"Uh—yes?" he stammered. She walked to the kitchen and he followed her again.

"Where is your cutlery?" she asked, opening first one drawer, then another. He reached down to open a lower cupboard, showing her where he kept the knives and forks.

"Not where you'd expect to find them," he explained. "Why don't I set the table, while you serve the food?"

"Excellent," she answered, turning to the stove. He handed her a plate and she placed a few pieces of chicken and some vegetables on it, then gave it back to him to set on the table. When he returned, he caught her standing on her tiptoes, looking in another of the cupboards for the glasses. Her back was turned to him and he could see the lines of her brassiere through the thin fabric as she strained to reach a high shelf.

Foyle stepped swiftly forward, putting his hands on either side of her waist, pulling her to flat feet again. She gasped in surprise. He reached above her to get the glasses, pressing himself against her body as he did so. Placing the glasses on the sideboard, he returned his hands to her hips and leaned forward to kiss the nape of her neck. Sam gasped as his lips touched her and she arched her head back, giving him access to the rest of her neck. Her damp hair brushed against his face and he thought, again, of what she must have looked like just risen from her bath. He kissed her under her left ear before turning her in his arms to face him squarely. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight at him, anticipating his kiss.

When his lips met hers she moaned into his mouth, shifting her body slightly to get closer to him. He wrapped her more tightly in his arms as he continued to kiss her, first quickly and lightly, then harder and more insistently. His breathing grew shallower as he felt, not for the first time with her, an excitement in his groin. He felt lust towards her, there was no denying that, but he felt something else, as well. Love? Adoration? Her presence was so  _sweet_  to him, almost unbearably so. She tasted like honey and almonds and fresh grass.

It moved Foyle to distraction to feel her respond to his body in return. He noticed every small alteration in her breathing, every noise she emitted, every glance she gave him, every moment when she was so overcome that she had to shut her eyes. It had been years since Foyle had enjoyed a kiss so much, and he wondered if it had to do with her relative innocence. It was delightful to be showing her new things about herself, as was evident from her first startled reaction when he kissed the back of her neck. Foyle moved to kiss her chin, then traveled down her neck with his mouth, kissing the hollow where her collarbones met. She took his head in her hands, as if holding on to him for balance, as he darted his tongue into that slight impression at the base of her neck.

For Sam, kissing Foyle was both a familiar and not-so-familiar sensation. She had thought again and again, in the last week, about the times when they had already kissed, replaying them in her mind until the memories were worn shiny with use. But the memories could not do the reality justice. There in Foyle's kitchen, Sam understood that there was no substitute for the very real man who held her in his arms. His kisses were nothing like the kisses that she had shared with other men, who had either bored her or overwhelmed her with their urgency. Foyle, in contrast, seemed content to take his time exploring her body, asking nothing from her except the satisfaction of seeing her respond to him. And respond she did! She couldn't help the sounds that escaped her mouth, nor the trembling in her knees that made her grasp desperately at his hair as he kissed her neck.

Foyle drew his mouth lower, descending her upper chest with his lips until he came to the first, open buttonhole of her dress. She had dressed quickly after the bath and had neglected to close the top button. He delved through the opening collar and kissed the spot where her breasts came together. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the lines of her slip and her brassiere, in fawn-coloured fabric. Sam held her breath, waiting for him to continue, hoping he would not stop just then.

But suddenly Foyle stood upright and pressed his lips to her own again. She felt a bead of perspiration form under each of her arms; he could smell her faint, musky scent as he continued to kiss her, again and again, moving his tongue in and out of her mouth until she murmured, " _Foyle_ ," softly and expectantly.

"Yes?" he asked, speaking for the first time since he had returned to the room.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," she said, leaning her forehead against his. "I'm very… _hungry_." The way she said this last word suggested that she had more than one kind of appetite just then.

Foyle pulled back to look in her face.

"Sam—" he started, surprised by the implication of her words. "I didn't mean—"

"Shhh," she said, pressing a finger to his lips. "Don't apologize for this.  _I_ am not sorry for anything."

"I—what I meant to say was—I'm sorr—"

She cut him off again. "What did I say? No apologies. No offence taken, at least on my end."

"None here either," he joked. He was still holding her waist and he began to stroke her ribs, gently, with his fingers. "But I will have to apologize very soon indeed if we don't sit down to dinner right now."

"Let's eat, then," Sam said, pulling away from him. "Did you finish setting the table?"

"Yes," he told her. "Not much to do."

"Oh, the  _coq au vin_  will be a bit cold," she said. "Shall we put it back on the stovetop?"

"No," he said. "I don't mind." He smiled at her, still enchanted by their kisses and her presence in his kitchen.  _The green dress was an amazing find,_  he thought.  _I wonder how she managed to get the fabric, with all the rationing._ He had rarely seen a frock that so perfectly suited its wearer. He hoped that she had more dresses like it.

"I don't mind either," Sam said, moving into the dining room.

They sat facing each other, at the end of a long table that might easily have seated ten people. Sam wondered on what occasions Foyle would use such a table, then reflected that he probably had done so when his wife was still alive. It was a ridiculously large table for just one person, but Foyle rarely ate there when he was alone, preferring the small corner table in the kitchen.

They each ate slowly, engrossed in each other's company, barely noticing the food they were eating. Foyle complimented Sam on her cooking, of course, but he had thoughts only for her person. In the dim light of the room, with the glow of sunset slanting through the windows, she was more radiant than ever, a picture in gold and green. He noticed how her brown eyes had speckles of yellow in them, and he saw for the first time the birthmark on her right ear.

Sam was watching Foyle, too, to see how he might respond to her after their passionate encounter in the kitchen. As he had done during their dinner in Eastborne, she observed that he could hardly take his eyes off her.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, with mock concern.

"Yes—why?" he enquired.

"Because you haven't stopped staring at me since we sat down to eat," she chided. "You can calm down, I'm not going anywhere—at least not yet." She smiled up at him. He smiled back and reached for her hand across the table.

"I didn't know how much this would mean to me, your coming here to stay with me," he told her. What he didn't say was that, ever since his wife's death, the only other woman who had occupied his kitchen was the near-elderly woman who came on the weekends to clean.

"Hmm?" She gave him an inquisitive look that said  _Care to tell me any more lovely things?_

"Yes, it's quite—comfortable… having you around."

_Comfortable?_  She thought to herself.  _What am I, his housekeeper?_

"Really?" she said, raising her eyebrow.

"Yes," he said, hoping that he could explain what he meant more graciously. "I like your company, you know." He looked up at her. "And not just behind the wheel."

"Thank you," she said, not quite sure of where he was going with this train of thought. "And I like yours, as well." She took another bite of food, then pushed around a potato on her plate.

"But Sam, I really don't think you should stay here long," he said.

She looked up, disappointed.

"I certainly wasn't planning on decamping here permanently!" she exclaimed. "I've been calling the billeting office every day as is, and I don't intend to stop now."

"No, of course you don't," he agreed. "What I meant was… I think it would be best—for you—if we made this arrangement a temporary one." What he wanted to say, but didn't dare voice, was that he felt that it would be all too easy for him to get used to Sam's presence in every area of his life. And that it was a step he had never intended them to arrive at so very early in their courtship.

"Are you saying that my moral reputation might be at stake?" Sam asked, trying to sound light-hearted. He looked up in alarm, about to deny this. "No, no," she reassured him. "I am quite aware that  _you_  are no threat to me. What I am more concerned about is my  _own_ reaction to you."

He raised an eyebrow, curious to see what she would say next.

"Can't you tell, Foyle?" she continued. "How much—how  _very_  much I like—" His jaw grew slack in amazement. "—but no, you couldn't know—or could you?" She waited for him to answer, but he let her continue. "You are an observant man," she noted. "Surely you can tell that some of this is new to me. Or, at the least, the  _feelings_  are new." She sighed and looked at her plate. "Tell me, does it ever go away?"

"What?" he asked, scarcely breathing in anticipation of what she might say next.

"The longing," she said. "The wishing that I could be with you, at all times. The not caring about what other people say. The  _need_  that I feel, when you touch me." She blushed.

A shiver passed through him upon hearing her confession of longing. But he brushed his thoughts aside to concentrate on something else that she had said.

"You  _should_  care about what people say, Sam," he reminded her.

"Why?" she asked. "Hasn't the war changed everything?"

"Not everything," he said. "Or we neither of us would be working just now. It  _is_  our duty to maintain order in a time of war."

"Must  _every_  law be maintained?" she asked, pointedly.

"I'm afraid so, Sam," he said, rather dismally. "We can't have people profiting off the war, now can we?"

"Even the laws that aren't  _really_  laws?" she asked. "Do we have to uphold those, as well? The laws that aren't really on the books?"

He paused, not sure how to answer her. His mouth puckered in contemplation as he waited for her to continue.

"What do you mean, Sam?" he asked, finally, when it was apparent that she wasn't going to say any more.

"I mean—the laws that say that I shouldn't be here with you, as an unmarried woman." He paused, again not sure how to answer her.

"What do  _you_  think, Sam?" he asked, turning the question back to her.

"I think that a lot of those laws are just rubbish. They are just there to keep people from enjoying themselves." She looked at him roguishly.

Up went the eyebrow again. He waited for her to explain herself. When she didn't, he answered her. "Is that the only thing they are for, Samantha?" he asked. "I can think of a few good reasons why such laws exist." She waited. "Are there any unmarried women of your acquaintance who have got pregnant?" he asked.

"No—yes," she corrected herself. "Betsy Peters. She went away the last year of secondary school. Everyone knew that her boy had given her one too many but we all went along and pretended that she had gone to visit her aunt in Yorkshire, as her parents said."

"And then what happened?" he asked her.

"She came back. With a flat stomach and no baby."

"What happened to the child?" he asked.

"We never knew. An orphanage, I suppose."

"Hmmm," he said. "And your friend?"

"She moved to Canada after we left school. Went to join a cousin there on some farm or something. Saskatchewan, I think."

"And why do you think she had to move so far away?" he asked her.

She was starting to become annoyed. "Because she wanted another chance, I would guess. To start over."

"Exactly," he said, smugly. " _That's_  why these laws exist. So that young women don't have to choose between their children and their reputation. So that men will marry women instead of leaving them pregnant and penniless. See?" He raised both eyebrows and looked at her sternly.

"What are you suggesting?" she asked. "That Betsy's boy should have married her?"

"Yes," he said. "That would have been the honourable thing to do."

"But she didn't  _love_  him," Sam said. "He was cruel to her…he lied and he cheated."

"All the more reason for her to have resisted him in the first place," Foyle mumbled.

Sam looked dejected.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe she _did_  make a mistake, choosing him. But he should have been more careful. There was no reason for her to end up pregnant. For heaven's sake, there are  _methods—_ " She pronounced this last word with great significance.

"It doesn't matter, Sam," he said. "She wouldn't have been a virgin any longer."

"With all due respect," she started, "do you  _really_  think that virginity means that much anymore? I mean, we're at  _war_. Surely there are plenty of things that are more important than what a girl puts between her legs."

Foyle almost snorted.

"Some might say that that is the most important thing of all," he said, thinking of Freud. "It's very powerful," he added.

"I wouldn't know," she said, almost bitterly.

Foyle grew quiet. He wasn't sure if he should tell her what he really thought, or what he wanted her to believe.

He and Rosalind had had relations before they were married, and he had known other women since her death, but he had been faithful to his wife as long as she was alive. Still, Foyle felt like a hypocrite speaking with Sam, laying down the moral code as if he were the finest exemplar of celibacy and faithfulness on the southern coast. But he didn't want Sam to think that he wished  _her_  to behave otherwise, in case she doubted his motives towards her.

"But if it  _is_  the most important thing of all—" Sam continued.

"If what is?" Foyle asked, a bit confused.

"Sex," she said, mischievously. There—she had said it at last! She pressed on heedlessly. "If it  _is_  the most important thing of all, then why doesn't anyone talk about it? Why do we pretend that babies are brought by a stork when a couple is married? And why do we forget that women don't  _need_  to have children, in the first place?"

"How do you know about that?" Foyle asked her. "You mentioned ' _methods_ '."

"I may be young," Sam countered, "but I'm not a child." She glared at him.

"I am confused about something else," Foyle said. "You told me that you thought at first that I had invited you here because I wanted you to sleep in my bed. And apparently you didn't like this idea overmuch at the time. So now I'm wondering, Samantha, just why you are bringing up all this talk of 'methods' and pregnancy with me just now."

_Damn_ , she thought.  _Why does he have to turn every conversation into an investigation?_

"You know why," she answered in turn.

"Do I?" he asked.

She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a reply.

"Do you know why a man wants his wife to be a virgin, Samantha?" he asked point-blank.

"I think you are about to tell me," she responded.

"Better not," he said. "Maybe we should leave you with at least  _some_  mystery surrounding sex, eh, Sam?" This was a low tactic, and he knew it, to point out her lack of experience when she was clearly eager to learn more. The fact that Foyle was the one who had put a stop to things did not make him feel any better about himself.

Privately, Foyle also thought that the hymen garnered an inordinate amount of attention for such a small flap of tissue. Rosalind hadn't been a virgin when they had met, and nor had Foyle, but the first time they were together had felt as if both of them had discovered sex and love anew. No, virginity itself was not what was important, so much as the feelings that passed between a man and a woman when they came together for the first time. There should be desire and respect, tenderness and joy, and most of all,  _exhilaration_  in the newness of another's body; love might come later. Foyle could not understand why he believed these things in principle but couldn't countenance them in Sam's case. Was it because she was so young, that he wanted to protect her from men, even if the man happened to be himself? Was it because he still feared coming across as a randy old billy goat? Was it because of his compunctions at starting to see an employee outside of work? He could not put a finger on why he felt that he  _must_  keep things on the straight and narrow with Sam.

For her part, Sam scowled at him. Instead of telling him what was on her mind, she stood and began to clear the plates away.

"I'll wash, you dry," she proposed. Foyle stood and helped her gather the glasses. They went into the kitchen together to clean up. He kept a physical distance from Sam as she stood at the sink, scrubbing away at the mess that they had created. Every so often she would hand him a clean dish and he would dry it neatly before putting it in the cupboard where it belonged. He was careful not to reach over Sam's shoulder, not wanting to suggest that he was looking for anything further from her.

He should have been contented with what she had already given him, he reminded himself. It was not every day that he entertained such an alluring woman in his own home, sharing his kitchen and even his bathroom with her. And those kisses! Her lovely, firm body, pliant under his touch! He had not felt this enchanted by a woman since he had first started to walk out with Rosalind. And if Sam was not quite what he had expected—if she was a little bolder than he had believed—well, he admired her the more for it, though he would not tell her that.

Similarly, he swore that he would never tell Sam just how much her suggestion of "methods" had given rise to unorthodox images of himself and his driver, stripped of their clothing, enjoying the greatest pleasures that their bodies could give them—with none of the consequences.

He had not answered her other question, when she had asked whether the feeling of longing ever went away. How could he tell her that, at 49 years old, he felt as passionate as he ever had in his twenties, but that his desire was now tempered by judgment? And how could he ever explain that, in marriage, his desire may have waned somewhat over the years, but his regard for her had continued to grow, so that, even now, thinking about Rosalind made his chest grow tight with love? These were things about sex that Sam would have to learn herself, from her own experiences. He could try to explain them but they would not mean much until she lived through them. From what he could tell of women his own age, their desire did not diminish either; if anything, it grew even stronger as they matured.

Foyle invited Sam to join him in the study when they had finished tidying up. He had noticed the book she was reading at the station, and suggested that they spend a little time reading before going to bed. Sam declined his invitation, saying that she preferred to go to sleep. He could tell from the expression on her face that she was tired, the several nights of sleeplessness having caught up to her.

Sam bid him a casual "good-night," turning quickly towards her own room before he could offer her a nighttime kiss. He felt his heart sink in disappointment as he watched her walk down the corridor, away from him. But part of him scolded himself for expecting anything more of her that night. He had tried to make it clear to Sam—and, most of all, to himself—that he was not planning to seduce her.  _But at the rate things are going,_  he thought,  _either she'll seduce_ _ **me**_ _first_ _ **—**_ _or decide to camp out at the billeting office._


	11. Chapter 11

Sam woke in the middle of the night with an intense craving for a cigarette. Foyle didn't smoke, and she doubted that he would appreciate if she smoked in the house, so she grabbed a pack of fags and a book of matches, threw her coat over her nightgown and went out his front door. She sat on the steps and lit a cigarette, looking down the darkened street for passersby. It was three in the morning. She was alone with the night.

Sam had not smoked before she moved to Hastings, but she had quickly taken to the calming, precise ritual of smoking. She blew delicate rings of smoke into the darkness as she sat and thought about the last few days. Her life had changed, again, taking another sudden turn when her house was destroyed, just as it had changed when she joined the MTC, then changed again when she was posted to the Hastings police force as Foyle's driver, and had changed yet another time when she began to see her boss outside of work.

At the moment, she felt rather like a child who has been chastised for sampling the marmalade before teatime. Foyle had seemed to say to her, "Don't think about sex, you're too young for all that," while still hinting at the lovely things that adults experienced together.  _He_  was part of that world;  _she_  was not. It couldn't have been clearer to her.

And yet—why had he kissed her that way in the kitchen, coming upon her unawares, pressing his body against her back, kissing her neck and her chest so passionately? He could not be ignorant of the effect that such touch would have on her. Sam wondered what would have happened if she had not told him how much desire he made her feel when he kissed her like that. Her comment had seemed to still him. If she had remained silent, would he have continued? Sam was not even certain it was what she would have preferred, but to have been denied the opportunity by Foyle was humiliating.

 _Or was he repulsed by what I said about hunger and longing?_ Sam asked herself.  _Perhaps I came on rather strong. But_ — _no! It wasn't just me._ _ **He**_ _was the one who said that sex was the most powerful force there was, and then refused to talk to me any more about it. The old sourpuss!_ She smiled, thinking of how Foyle might respond if she called him "old".  _It's not as if I'm Eve, tempting him with the fruit. Quite the opposite, really—he's the one who's already eaten from it, telling me that I shouldn't have any, "for my own good." So maddening! As if I didn't have the right to decide for myself!_

The door behind her creaked and she saw Foyle standing there, in his dressing gown and slippers.

"Sam?" he asked, puzzled. "What are you doing here?" His forehead crinkled in bemusement. She noticed how the belt of his robe neatly cinched his trim waist. His hands in his pockets, chin bent down, he waited for her reply.

"I felt like a ciggie so I came out here," she explained lightly. "Didn't know how you would feel about me smoking in the house."

"Hmm," he murmured. "Planning to stay here for long?"

"At least until I finish this one," she said, gesturing to the newly lit cigarette between her fingers. Foyle thought for a moment. He could not read her mood just then. Did she want to be left alone, or did she want company? He decided to risk asking her.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked, pointing to the space next to her on the step.

"You smoke?" she asked in surprise.

"I have been known to do so," he said drily. "Picked up the habit during the last war—who didn't?—but I fell out of it during the years I was playing in the police football league. It didn't help my lungs. But," he sighed, "as you know, I'm no longer playing, so I don't mind a smoke from time to time." He sat down next to her, as she did not protest. She handed him a cigarette and helped him to light it. He sat back, sighing as he took the first drag. _There really is nothing like tobacco to calm the nerves_ , Foyle thought, then reflected that that meant that he was feeling nervous.  _But why should I be nervous right now?_ he asked himself, almost critically.  _I'm just sitting here with Sam._

Exactly. Foyle didn't know how things stood between them now, after the curt ending to their conversation last night. How could he tell her that he had not meant to sound as if he were rejecting her, but rather that he was clumsy when he came to talking about his feelings? He had made it seem as if Sam were the one who was crossing the bounds, when, if he were honest with himself, he knew that he was as much to blame.

"Sam—" he started.

"Hmm?" she looked up and over at him. They sat quite close together on the porch step, but there was still an inch of space between them. She could feel the heat from his body and, for a moment, considered moving closer to close the distance between the two of them. The fresh smell of his cologne reminded her that he had bathed just before he went to bed. She had heard the water running upstairs and, fleetingly, had imagined him in the same bathtub that she had vacated not hours before.

"Sam—just wanted to say—you know, earlier tonight—I spoke rather harshly to you, came off as a bit of a curmudgeon, I'm afraid." He turned to look at her and as he did so she noticed, again, how fine his profile was.

Sam raised her eyebrows, astonished that he would admit this outloud.

"Yesss," she said slowly. "I hate to agree with you, but there it is. You  _are_  a curmudgeon!" She laughed, wringing her hands in her lap. He stilled them with his own, taking her right hand in his. His touch felt calming, and Sam was briefly reassured that things right themselves.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You wanted to talk to me about something important, and I—I was surprised, Sam, and I mishandled the situation."

"Yes," she agreed again. "But what was so bad about my questions?"

Foyle scratched his head. His eyes grew wide as he considered what to say.

"I am stepping out with you; that we have agreed upon, am I right?" She nodded and he continued. "But apart from that, we don't know where things will go from here. You can't stay here forever, and you can't keep working as my driver  _and_  keep seeing me in private. We're in a bit of a mess right now, and I feel responsible. I don't know how to say this, Sam, without offending you, but I just don't want you to do anything that you might regret later."

"I think I can judge for myself what I might regret or not!" Sam said indignantly, pulling her hands away from his. He had not meant to do so, but he had become patronizing again, suggesting that he knew better than she did what was right for herself.

"I disagree," Foyle said coldly. "I'm sorry to have to point out the difference in our ages, but I do think that my experience counts for something here."

Sam sniffed in disbelief. "But the war—things are changing—you can't mean that we have to follow those same ridiculous rules we were talking about earlier!"

"I am afraid we do," Foyle said. "In fact, it may be more important now than ever to keep to form for form's sake."

"Please don't say such a thing," Sam said, a pleading note in her voice. "I can't bear it when you go all wise on me. I know I can't argue with your experience. But I notice things, too! I wasn't born yesterday! I can see enough to know that things are changing out there." She gestured expansively.

"Maybe so, but they haven't changed enough," Foyle said. "The fact still remains that you are my driver, and if anyone found out about us,  _my_  career would not be the only one at stake. Forget going back to the MTC—you would have to go back to Lyminster. And good luck getting a position in another force!"

"So, what you are saying is…?"

"Tomorrow I'll talk to Hugh Reid, a friend of mine. He has a daughter in the WRNS, living in Surrey. I'm sure he'd let you use her room, once I explained that you've been bombed out and haven't anywhere else to stay. He's in the police, too."

"No!" Sam said, forcefully, shaking her curls. "I can't believe you are doing this to me—kicking me out."

"It has to be this way, Sam," he said gently. "You can't keep staying here with me. What if it got out later that we had been seeing each other outside of work, too? What would Milner think? What would the police commissioner think?"

"Milner wouldn't care," Sam said, starting to cry. She dabbed at her eyes as she thought of how to answer him. "And I don't see why your commissioner should care about whom you see in your spare time."

Foyle sucked in his breath sharply. "Well, I am certain that it would be one more reason not to let me get involved with the war effort," he commented, "but most likely it would lead to my early retirement."

"And so you don't want to risk it," she stated flatly. He did not respond right away.

"Sam," he said, "I don't want to do this. I wish—what I told you the other night. I wish that I weren't your boss. I wish that I were 15 years younger. I wish—"

She cut him off, her voice angry and sorrowful all at once. "—I've heard enough of your wishes! What's the use of wishing if you can't make things happen?" She stood up, pulling her coat tighter around her. Foyle rose, too, and reached to put his hands on her shoulders. She pulled away from him, turning to enter the house.

"I'll leave tomorrow,  _Sir_ ," she said pointedly. "But I don't want to lose any more sleep over this. Good night." He watched her retreat and felt a lump forming in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. There was no other way—they  _had_  to stop seeing each other outside of work—but hewing to duty made Foyle feel indescribably sad. Sad, and  _old_. Wasn't that what old men did, cling to honor and tradition and rules? He must have lost the spark of youth, the rebellious spirit he once had had in spades. But he would not let his penchant for disobedience ruin this young woman's chances in life.

He wondered when he had turned into an old man, caring more about appearances than about substance. Foyle sighed as he followed Sam into the house, and upstairs to his own bedroom. She might be able to fall back asleep, but he was certain that it would be impossible for him.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place before and during the episode "Among the Few." The characters are not mine, some of their words come straight from the show, and no copyright infringement is intended. I am just having fun here and hope that you are, too!
> 
> If you are still reading at this point, then you know that this is a Sam/Foyle fanfiction and you'll kindly stay away from it if you don't fancy May-December romances.
> 
> Thank you to Dancesabove for her wonderful editing and to Treva Rea for her suggestions about the chapter.

Sam spent the next week at the Reids' house while she continued her search for a more permanent billet. While she certainly had no complaint about the Reids, Sam was angry at having been so summarily dismissed from Foyle's house. To make matters worse, he had begun to treat her as if she were nothing more than his driver: his invitations to dinner ceased, he was back to calling her "Miss Stewart," and he appeared not even to notice when she made an extra effort with her appearance.

Sam still had to put the rest of her life in order—find a place to live, apply for more clothing rations, write to her parents—so she didn't have as much time to dwell on these changes as she would have otherwise. The weeks slipped by and things gradually came "back to normal," where Foyle and Sam slipped back into their detective and driver roles with each other—except it wasn't the kind of normal that Sam wanted.

Nor was it what Foyle wanted, although Sam would have been hard-pressed to deduce this from his behavior towards her. Outwardly, he was formal, a little reserved, but unfailingly polite in his interactions with her. He did not ask to spend more time with Sam, but neither did he avoid her; she picked him up most days, as she always had done, and he continued to treat her with the same combination of condescension and admiration that had so goaded her from the beginning. But she could not get past this outward show of indifference towards her—no matter how many times she tried to catch him looking at her, no matter how often she sighed just a little too loudly at his side. Foyle would not bite.

"The one thing I don't understand, Sir, is why you didn't just have me transferred," Sam prodded him suddenly one day as they were driving on the outskirts of Hastings.

Foyle adjusted his hat and raised an eyebrow. "Do you  _want_  to be transferred?" he asked her. "I'm sure we can put in a request to the MTC."

"That's not at all what I mean," Sam said. "And you jolly well know it."

"So what you mean is…?"

"If you don't want to see me outside of work anymore, if you don't want to be involved with me, then why didn't you have me transferred? Why didn't you get rid of me?" Sam looked straight ahead, at the road, a bit scared now that she had finally asked him what was on her mind.

"Didn't see the need," Foyle answered brusquely. "You do your job well. No use asking for another driver, even assuming the Force would honor my request a second time." His words struck her hard—the casual way in which he implied that he had kept her around because she was useful to him, because he needed a driver, and nothing more. "Now, Sam, I'm a working man, you're a working woman. I'm sure that we can continue on as we were. Put things behind us, in other words." He looked at her questioningly.

"Yessir," Sam murmured.  _If he can pretend this didn't matter to him, then so can I!_  She thought determinedly.  _I can sport a stiff upper lip about things, too!_  Aloud she said, "I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have to look for a billet in another town anytime soon."

"Certainly not," he said.

They had arrived at the station. Sam turned off the engine and calmly walked around to the passenger door, which she opened for Foyle. He tipped his hat to her as he climbed out of the car and walked into the station. Sam stayed behind to attend to a noise she had heard coming from under the bonnet. It was an excuse to spend a few moments by herself and let his words sink in. Foyle could not have been clearer with her: she was his driver again, only his driver, and nothing more. He kept her around because it would have been inconvenient to find another driver in the midst of the war.

_So this is how things stand between us_.  _I wish that I could turn off my feelings for him as easily as he is able to stop caring about me._ She fought the urge to cry and turned her attention, instead, to the Wolseley's oil gauge. For once she was grateful to the persnickety car for giving her something to think about other than herself.

* * *

Several weeks later, Sam heard from Milner that Andrew had returned to Hastings. His arrival explained why Foyle had stopped working late, and also why he now rushed out the door in the morning as soon as he saw the Wolseley arrive, instead of waiting for her to knock. Either he couldn't wait to get away from Andrew in the morning, or he didn't want Sam and Andrew to meet again. Whichever it was, it was a change in his behavior that interested Sam.

But Sam and Andrew did meet, soon enough, in a situation that neither had anticipated.

Foyle and Milner were having some difficulty deciding what to do about the situation at the Bexhill fuel depot. They had reason to believe that someone there was siphoning off gallons of fuel and selling it on the black market, but the depot's records looked clean. The best way to discover what was happening there was to send someone undercover to investigate, which was a tricky business at the best of times. Mr. Foyle was in his office at the station, considering the situation, when Sam knocked on the door. She entered bearing a cup and saucer.

"Tea, sir?" she asked. She still brought him tea, still kept up this little gesture of friendliness. To her eyes, Foyle looked tired, and she wished that she could reach out and smooth the lines in his forehead, comforting him with her touch. She hoped that he understood that her bringing tea to him was a way to show him that she cared for him, even if he didn't feel the same way in return.

"Thanks," he said curtly, stepping away from her. Her heart sank.

Foyle scratched his head, distracted.

"Is there a problem, Sir?" Sam asked, wishing he would tell her what was wrong, but suspecting that he would keep any concern he might have to himself.  _If only he were thinking about_ _ **me**_ **,** Sam thought.  _Now, there's a problem that could be easily solved!_

"Yeah…there is, a bit," Foyle said, stepping a few feet closer to her as she came around his desk to face him. He looked down at the paper in his hand and bit his lip.

Milner came through the open door. "I've just spoken with Freddy Pearce's widow," he announced. He then informed Foyle and Sam that he knew whom the dead fuel driver had worked for. Sam listened intently, caught up in the intricacies of a new case, hoping that she could be of some use.

Milner came around to the desk, where Foyle had seated himself to examine the documents more closely. His sergeant peered over his shoulder, asking, "Who's it going to be, Sir?" Sam looked on, quiet but curious, the wheels in her head turning.

Foyle's voice was flat with discouragement. "I've no idea, Milner."

"It  _is_  a problem, isn't it?" Milner asked.

" _What_  is?" Sam interrupted.

Foyle looked up at her. He knew that his driver would jump at any chance to become further involved in detective work, but he hesitated to tell her what the problem was, for fear that she'd volunteer herself.

"We're just trying to think of who we can put into this Bexhill Fuel Depot," Foyle said, his eyes firmly fixed on the papers at hand, as if he were refusing to look Sam in the eye. "You see, we're seriously short of men."

"Yes, I know what you mean," Sam said briskly, raising an eyebrow.

Foyle's eyes shot upwards and her caught her gaze.  _Did she actually mean…? Was she referring to_ _ **her**_ _shortage of men?_ He looked at her with disbelief, and yet appreciatively, too. Sam was a clever woman; she had responded to his comment without a moment's hesitation. He had caught the implication behind her words, but he doubted that Milner had. Foyle looked back at Sam, waiting for her to explain herself.

Sam shrugged one shoulder, as if dismissing the idea that she had said anything untoward. "Does it  _have_  to be a man?" she asked.

_Thank God_ _ **you're**_ _not a man,_  Foyle thought.  _Although then you'd be much less trouble, as far as I'm concerned._ Foyle was more taken aback that he would have liked by Sam's comment, with its double meaning. He had known for some time—since he had first kissed her—that his driver was not nearly as innocent as she let on. He wouldn't put it past her to voice her complaint at his leaving her through a well-timed jab— _in front of Milner, no less!_ —that only Foyle could interpret.  _Damn her!_  She still knew how to get under his skin.

Sam went glibly on. "I've driven a tractor on my uncle's farm. Even a three-tonner, during training." Sam paused. "Only on fields, mind," she added as an afterthought. Foyle stole a dubious glance at Milner as if to say,  _Can you believe what she is suggesting?_

Foyle caught her gaze as he quickly decided what to say. "Thank you," he began, "but I don't—"

Sam interrupted him. "—Any racketeer worth his salt would spot a policeman a mile off," she said convincingly. Foyle's jaw dropped slightly as he contemplated Sam's suggestion. She stood upright before him, the picture of propriety and obedience. Yet what she was suggesting—spy work—was a risky job for a woman. " _No one_  would suspect me," she went on.

Surprisingly, Milner agreed with her. "She  _does_ have a point, Sir," he said.  _Damn you too, Milner,_  Foyle thought.  _Now you're siding with her!_

"I'd be  _completely_  invisible! Like a sort of secret agent!" Foyle struggled to shut his gaping mouth and come up with a suitable reply. The manifest enthusiasm in her face made him loath to turn her down, yet he knew that the job would carry some danger, and it made his heart still to think of what he would do if something happened to her, especially while under his command.

"Um—um," he stammered. "I'll  _think_  about it," he said, in a tone that indicated that his mind was already made up. Sam looked crestfallen. He gave her a grim half-smile, hoping she'd leave it at that.

But Sam being Sam, she didn't give up the idea. She could hardly stop talking about it in the car that evening. As she drove him home, she peppered him with questions about the case, and even when he refused to answer her, she provided him with her own theories.

"What about the Germans?" she asked. "Do you think they might be buying the fuel and sending it to their own troops? I heard once about a Jerry spy who was caught pilfering food rations in London. Of all things for a spy to be taken in for! And then there was the Russian who dressed up like a woman and tried to buy all of the silk stockings at Harrods …" Sam breezily continued her speculations, heedless of the fact that Foyle had sunk more deeply into his seat. He was about to pull his trilby over his face and hide himself completely—either that, or he would have to silence her with kisses, and he had already excluded that tempting remedy from consideration—when he suddenly had a thought that made him bolt upwards.

_Andrew knows someone who works at Bexhill!_  he remembered.  _Some girl or other… Rose? Iris?_  He couldn't recall her name.  _Perhaps Sam could do double duty—keep an eye on the fuel depot—and find out more about Andrew's girl!_  He smiled to himself.

"Carry on, Sam," he said. "I think you're quite right, after all. Excellent idea about the fuel depot. We'll see about getting you that transfer tomorrow. I'll talk to the men I know at the MTC."

"Really, Sir?" she asked, delightedly. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "Now, drive me straight home, before I regret it."

"I'll make sure you don't regret it," she assured him. "I promise."

* * *

Several days later, Sam was working undercover at Bexhill, the fuel depot, when Andrew happened to stop by on his motorbike to put in a requisition order for the RAF. He recognized her and asked her what she was doing there, but before he could blow her cover in front of the depot manager and her new colleague—who also happened to be his girlfriend, though Sam did not know that—she explained that she and Andrew had stepped out together, long ago.

Sam had put some thought into her back-story before applying to work at Bexhill; Foyle and Milner had helped prepare her, too, asking her possible questions that might arise, such as how she had learned to drive large machinery (working at her uncle's removal firm), and why she was asking to transfer from Ipswich if her supervisors had such glowing reviews of her (her mother was ill and she wanted to be near her). Sam had planned for every contingency—except for being recognized by someone who knew her as Foyle's driver.

She couldn't explain to herself why the first thing that had popped into her head was to say that she and Andrew had stepped out together, but Andrew seemed to enjoy the farce and played along willingly enough. Sam didn't think of it again, until Andrew's real girl, Violet, became a little too curious about their history together. It was then that Sam realized how very difficult the whole spying business could be.  _If only I had said some rubbish about us belonging to the same Bible study or something,_ she thought ruefully.  _Though the idea of Andrew studying the scriptures is rather hilarious!_

No, it was better that everyone think she had been his "best girl"—it was more in line with his character, and at the least, it wasn't a lie that she  _had_ been the best girl of a certain Foyle, even if it was the father, and not the son. Sam only hoped that her boss wouldn't find out which excuse she had used for already knowing Andrew.

* * *

Sam waited outside of Connie Dewar's house, dressed in the camel-colored, one-piece uniform she was required to wear while working at the fuel depot. She had agreed to meet Foyle and Milner there, between fuel runs, in order to tell them everything she knew about Connie.

"Is it murder, Sir?" Sam asked anxiously, as Foyle came down the walk.

"Looks like it," he said, matter-of-factly. He was dressed in his suit and, as he came down to join her, she notice how dashing he looked, even when leaving a murder scene. Milner was close on his heels.

"You don't think she could have thrown herself down the stairs?" Sam asked.

"Why?" Foyle came closer to her, his shoulders almost touching her own as he leaned in to hear what she had to say. His proximity sent a shiver down her back and she had to force herself to pay attention to what he was saying.

"She was so miserable yesterday," Sam said.

"Was she?" He moved away from her, and she missed his closeness.

"It had to do with Rex, this pilot she was seeing." Foyle nodded, deep in thought. He glanced at her as she spoke, impressed by Sam's level-headedness in the face of her colleague's murder. "She got very angry with him for—getting involved in a fight," Sam informed him.

"No, it wasn't suicide," Foyle said, answering her other question.

"This is all about petrol, isn't it, Sir?" Sam asked gravely.

"Well, maybe," he said, not wanting to acknowledge that she might be right. "You're sure it was Rex Talbot she was seeing, yeah?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"What about the other girl?" Foyle asked her unexpectedly. Sam paused before answering.

"Violet?"

Foyle nodded. "Was she seeing anyone?"

Sam hesitated. Violet  _was_  seeing someone, that much she could confirm. But if Foyle had to ask her that question, it meant one of two things: either he had no idea that Violet was seeing  _Andrew_ , or he wanted to find out if Sam had been privy to that information. He might be asking an innocent question, or he might be testing her, to see how well she had spied, and where her loyalties might lie. It was difficult to know how to respond.

"I don't really know," Sam said vaguely, avoiding his stare.

"You don't really know?" Foyle asked, the suspicion evident in his voice.  _Damn it!_  Sam thought.  _This_ _ **was**_ _a test—either of Andrew or of me!_

Sam looked away bashfully, stammering a little before she spoke. "Well, I—"

"—Oh now, for God's sake, just tell me the truth!" Foyle interrupted her brusquely. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Really! Don't keep anything from me just because it involves my son!" He was angry at her now, and he wasn't afraid to let her hear it. He was angry that Sam had obviously lied to him—to  _him_ , who could detect a lie from a mile away ( _and well she knows it,_  he thought)—and he was angry that he could not figure out by himself why she had done so. Was she withholding information to protect Violet? To protect Andrew? He couldn't decide which prospect upset him more.

If she was protecting Violet, then it meant that she was not nearly as good a mole as he had hoped; it would mean that she felt sympathy for Violet and had, in essence, "gone over" to the other side. On the other hand, if Sam was protecting Andrew, what might  _that_  mean? Foyle hardly liked that prospect any better. He had purposefully avoided introducing Sam to Andrew when she had first started working for him, and had tried his best to keep Andrew as far away from his driver as possible.

_It's unlikely that Sam knows Andrew apart from our work together,_ Foyle reminded himself, taking a deep breath. He knew that he was overreacting to Sam's white lie, and his response troubled him. He needed to keep his head clear, so that he could concentrate on the work at hand. There was a dead woman, one whose death was a mystery, and Foyle wouldn't be of any use to her if he kept ruminating on the behavior of his driver and his son.

"She was seeing Andrew, wasn't she?" he asked her.

"Yes, Sir," she demurely replied, looking down. Milner politely turned away, embarrassed for Sam's sake.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Foyle asked bluntly. He was disappointed in her, she could tell from his voice and from the look on his face. She wondered if she were imagining the other things she saw in his expression: vulnerability, earnestness, a fear that she no longer trusted him enough to share everything with him.

"I didn't want to say," she offered ineffectually. Then, as if to explain herself, she added, "I know he's not involved in this, Sir."

He licked his lips and interrupted her, no longer making eye contact. "Of  _course_  he's involved. It's quite obvious he's involved, and it's murder, and that means nobody is protected, not even him." He turned away from Sam and she felt suddenly bereft. "You understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Sam said petulantly. Foyle walked away and Milner flashed her a sympathetic glance before following the Chief Superintendent, leaving Sam to her own musings.

_How could he think that Andrew had anything to do with this?_   _His own_ _ **son**_ _! You would think that_ Andrew _at least would be above his suspicion. Golly, if that isn't the case, then nobody is exempt in his book! For all I know,_ _ **I**_ _may be a suspect, too! What if he thinks that I killed Connie to get to Rex? Anything is possible, right?_ Sam almost laughed at the thought, but she was too disturbed by Foyle's cold interrogation and his willingness to consider his son as a suspect. She had to admit that she knew little about Andrew, but what she did know did not indicate that Andrew would be a cold-blooded killer. The fact that his father would even  _consider_  such a possibility made Sam wonder how much Foyle really loved his son.

At the same time, Sam was ashamed of having lied to Foyle. He was right, in the end; she should not have tried to protect Andrew. She should have known better. It wasn't up to her to decide who would become a suspect and who wouldn't. No, that was Foyle's job, and she should not have questioned his judgment, even implicitly, by withholding important information from him.

She wondered what he thought of her now. She couldn't imagine that he saw her in a good light, now that he knew that she had lied to him. Sam wished that she could turn back the clock and say the right thing. It occurred to her that, to make things right, she would have to turn the clock back several months, to that conversation they'd had together in his dining room. She still wondered why Foyle would not answer her questions about men and women, and why he had grown so stodgy and old-fashioned all of a sudden.

Most of all, though, she hoped that she had not irremediably lost his trust and esteem.

* * *


	13. Chapter 13

Sam had been drawn to detective novels, long before she was assigned to be Foyle's driver, because she liked the neat way that those books divided the world into good and evil. Of course, part of the fun of the detective novel was trying to figure out who was good, and who was not; the truly great writers were the ones who kept the reader guessing until the very end. In the real world, Sam had always felt a giddy sense of relief once Foyle and Milner had established which suspects were innocent and which were guilty; it relieved her of the tension of having to keep too many options open in her head at the same time. It did not occur to her that Foyle might feel the same sense of relief at ending a case, nor did she suspect the enormous amount of responsibility that went with making a final arrest. If he were wrong, the risk of committing an injustice was tremendous. And Foyle also knew, though Sam did not, that the risk to his career was even greater if Andrew had had even the most miniscule relationship to the murder, and if it were found out that DCS Foyle had refrained from investigating him because Andrew was his own son.

Sam also could not have known that Foyle and Andrew had long disagreed about how to treat women. Andrew thought that his father was old-fashioned and stodgy; he imagined that Christopher Foyle had had only one woman in his life, and she had been his mother. In Andrew's eyes, his father was a heartbroken widower who failed to see how much more to life—and love—there might be for him, if he only took the chance.

Andrew, in contrast, took too many chances, or at least Foyle thought so. It wasn't so much that he begrudged Andrew the opportunity to sow his wild oats— _God knows I had that kind of fun in my day,_ Foyle thought—but Foyle was distressed by just how profligate Andrew was in his attentions towards women. Ever since Andrew had turned 16, Foyle couldn't keep the girls' names straight. Eliza, Peggy, Myrtle, Elinor—every week, it seemed, Andrew had a new best girl. Even when he had gone away to Oxford, his letters were full of mentions of outings and goings-on and co-ed parties. And then there had been the unfortunate incident in which an Oxford don had caught Andrew necking with the don's half-dressed daughter in her bedroom.

The daughter had claimed that Andrew had forced himself on her, but Foyle doubted this: he knew that Andrew was the kind of man who would never need to steal his kisses. Women were all too eager to give themselves to him. But the don believed his daughter's cry of "rape," of course, finding it impossible to reconcile himself with the idea that Myra might have willingly invited Andrew into her bed. The don threatened to bring the incident up with the university council, and it was only the hasty intervention of Foyle and Commander Howard—and the daughter's hasty retraction of her accusation—that prevented Andrew's expulsion from the university. Since then, Foyle had watched Andrew's goings-on with women with an air of exasperation and resentment, knowing that if anything went wrong, Andrew would expect his father to help him work things out.

 _Sam was right,_ Foyle thought, _when she told me that I shouldn't worry so much about getting him out of the RAF cell. He is a grown man; he should be able to solve his own problems._ But Foyle still felt a responsibility to his son, and to Rosalind, as well.  _She would never forgive me if anything happened to Andrew, if I could avoid it._ In this way Foyle rationalized his continued involvement in Andrew's affairs.

Besides fearing that Andrew would come to him one day with the news that he had got some girl pregnant, Foyle worried about Andrew forming a permanent attachment too early. Andrew had had chances that Foyle had never had—a top-rate university education, for one, and service in a prestigious military unit—and Foyle hated to think of his son's freedoms being curtailed by an unexpected pregnancy or an early marriage. Foyle had loved Rosalind Howard dearly, but he had often thought that they had married too young—too young for him and, especially, too young for her. She was only sixteen years old when she had agreed to wed  _him_ , a "temporary officer and gentleman," recently returned from the Great War.

His child bride had brought Foyle much happiness and lightheartedness in the difficult years when he was readjusting to civilian life and struggling to find a place for himself in the rapidly changing world around him. She was his bedrock, the voice of reason and simplicity from another age. Indeed, although Rosalind was so much younger than he was, Foyle often thought that it was she who acted as if she were living in the last century, she who had failed to grow into the strange new world that had resulted after the war. Rosalind was old-fashioned and quaint, dedicating herself to genteel pursuits such as painting and flower-pressing. Motherhood had suited her perfectly: she seemed to come into her own as Andrew's mother, delighting as much in his small accomplishments as if they had been her own.  _Rosalind would be so proud of Andrew,_  Foyle thought.  _Oxford, the RAF. But she would have spoiled him, too._

Foyle and Rosalind had disagreed about how to raise Andrew. When Rosalind's poor health made a second pregnancy impossible, they'd had to resign themselves to having a small family. Privately, Foyle thought that Rosalind was too indulgent with Andrew, and wondered if she would have lavished so much attention on him if they had had more children. For one, Rosalind had resisted sending him to school until he was seven years old, preferring to keep Andrew by her side as long as possible. When Andrew finally started at the local grammar school, he got into fights with the other boys and, on more than one occasion in Andrew's first year at school, Foyle had been called in by his teachers to discipline his son. The complaints were that Andrew wanted the other children to follow and obey him, and when they would not, he would become sulky and throw a tantrum, or hit another boy. As he grew older and learned to control himself, he made friends easily and soon came to dominate the classroom and sports pitch with his innate intelligence and his smooth athleticism. These qualities made Foyle proud of him, but he also noticed his son's arrogance, self-centeredness, and sometime disdain for others.

Andrew had always confided in his mother, and it was Rosalind who could bring out the best in him, even if she was sometimes too lenient. Foyle, on the other hand, was a peripheral parent, called in only occasionally when Andrew had exasperated his mother sufficiently so as to warrant the involvement of his father. Then, Foyle would appear, to "do his duty," as his own father used to say before whipping young Christopher. Though Rosalind herself had begged Foyle to intervene, and although she had not heeded his warnings to be stricter with Andrew, Andrew's spankings were miserable experiences for the entire family. Rosalind would shut herself in her room and cry as father and son confronted each other in the other room. The guilt that followed the spanking was almost more than Foyle could bear. He clearly remembered his own father's beatings, which bordered on excessive at times, and Andrew's whimpers (if somewhat exaggerated) reminded Foyle of his own failings as a parent.  _If Rosalind—if I—if_ _ **we**_ _had only been firmer,_  he would think,  _we would never have had to arrive at this point._ His anger at his son blended with his anger towards his wife, who resented Foyle's efforts to establish a more consistent discipline in the house and only permitted him to intervene when Andrew's behavior had reached such a point that a spanking seemed the only course of action to her.

When Rosalind died, Foyle swore that he would implement the discipline that had been so lacking in the house when she was alive. Rather than beat Andrew, however—a tactic he considered only as an ultimate resort—he devised punishments that would deprive his son of the things that were most important to him. If Andrew came home late from cricket practice, for example, Foyle would forbid him to play for another week. If Andrew were caught kissing a girl after church school, Foyle would deny him his weekly trip to the cinema with his friends, instead forcing Andrew along with him as he went fly-fishing. No amount of pleading or whining on Andrew's part could make Foyle back down, not even when Andrew professed to not caring about cricket or the pictures. But the worst punishment of all, in Andrew's opinion, was seeing the disapproving, disappointed look on his father's face when he had done something wrong.

Father and son fought bitterly throughout Andrew's adolescence, sometimes spending days on end without exchanging more than surface civilities with each other. But slowly but surely, Andrew came in line. As he went through secondary school, the complaints from teachers were fewer; indeed, it became apparent that Andrew was the cleverest pupil in school, and the headmaster recommended that he apply for a scholarship to attend university. He had done, and was accepted to read Latin at Oxford. Yet, even as Andrew made Foyle proud as he excelled in the classroom, there was a distance between the two of them that never seemed to close.

No matter how much Andrew accomplished, he felt as if his father's approval was always just beyond his reach.  _I'd have to bloody well become an MP for my dad to so much as acknowledge me!,_  Andrew thought at times. The harder he worked for recognition from his father, the more he missed his mother's sweet adoration, her easy confidence in him. While he had to admit that his mother had been a bit of a pushover, a bit too easy to win to his side, there was no one else in his life who'd shown him such affection and regard. Perhaps for this reason, Andrew was always trailing after one girl or another, looking for the one woman who could tell him that he was perfect, that he was clever, that he was  _loved_. Certainly, his father could not do this for him.

* * *

The only thing that Foyle disliked more than interviewing his son's latest girl was having to interview Andrew himself. But after Violet told him that Andrew was the last person to see Connie alive—a fact she knew because Violet had spent the rest of the night with Andrew in a cheap hotel—Foyle had no choice but to treat his son as a suspect in Connie Dewar's murder. As he and Milner left Violet and the Bexhill depot behind, Foyle sighed deeply to himself and ran one hand wearily over his face. He tried to remind himself to calm down, to take things one step at a time, to not let himself get ahead of things.

"I'm sure  _Andrew_  is above suspicion," Milner said, trying to comfort him.

Foyle smiled bitterly. "He's not above  _mine,_ " he replied.

He was not nearly as disillusioned with his son as his words implied. The meeting with Violet had been yet another occasion on which Foyle had had to learn, from a stranger, of something untoward that Andrew had done—in this case, he had told some pretty flirt of a girl that he'd marry her someday, in order to find his way up her stockings. The fact that Andrew had taken her not to a fine hotel but to some out-of-the-way place only made Foyle angrier.  _Even if he_ _ **will**_ _seduce a girl in a hotel,_  he thought, _I thought at least he'd be gentleman enough to take her somewhere respectable._

To himself, Foyle contrasted his son's easy-go-lucky behavior with his own handling of the situation with Sam. A part of him deeply resented Andrew's wandering ways, not least because his son permitted himself the kind of freedom with women that Foyle could not imagine at his age. He had seen too much of the world to ignore the kind of damage that men could do to women.  _Here I am, doing my best to keep Sam out of trouble_ —he grimaced to think that  _he_  was the one who might have got her in trouble.  _Trying to keep Andrew out of trouble, too, come to think of it!_ He smiled a bit, wondering how he had ever thought that his son would grow up.  _And neither Sam nor Andrew has the slightest idea of what can go wrong when two people fall in love!_

Foyle remembered what it had been like to kiss Sam's sweet lips. How willingly she had gone along with his embraces! He berated himself, not for the first time, for having started something with his driver only to end it in such a sudden fashion. He liked to think that he had ended it for Sam's own good, but Sam's refusal to see things that way made it difficult for Foyle to believe that he'd really had her best interests at heart.  _What reason could I possibly have to turn down a lovely, intelligent woman like Sam?_ he asked himself.

With these thoughts on his mind, Foyle looked over at his substitute driver, one of the night constables— _not as pleasant company as Sam,_  he thought to himself—who was ferrying him towards the RAF base.

"Where should I pull in, Sir?" the man asked him.

Foyle directed him to the commander's lodge and mentally prepared himself for what he suspected would be a very uncomfortable interview with Andrew.

* * *

Of all of the things that Andrew had to say to his father about the murder of Connie Dewar, what hurt Foyle the most was Andrew's insistence that his father knew nothing about his inner life. As he left the base, Foyle recalled that part of their conversation.

"…you make it your business to drive her home, you're one of the last people to see her alive, your photograph's found in her diary—" Foyle was enumerating before Andrew interrupted him, livid.

"And you've been  _investigating_  me!' Andrew nearly shouted in anger. "You sent Sam in to spy on me and my friends, and what's more, you've been digging up the dirt on Violet and me!"

"Well, why couldn't you tell me?" Foyle asked, in a reasonable tone. "How do you think  _I_  feel, to find out you've been sneaking off to some godforsaken place with some girl and I'm the last person to know about it?"

"Wh—what? Would you rather I'd taken her  _home_?" Andrew scoffed, his eyes blazing. Foyle shrugged as if to say "I know, that was a silly thing to say."

"Well, do you  _love_  this girl?" he asked, instead, as if that made all of the difference, as if Andrew would even tell him that much.

"She's not 'this girl'! Her name is  _Violet!_  And it's none of your business!" He turned, as if to leave. "You know, Dad…I don't think you know me at all." Foyle glanced away from Andrew, pained. "I don't think you have any  _idea_  what goes on in my head." Andrew was just making things worse, and he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. He scrutinized his father's face, as if to threaten him. "You come here, of all places, and you ask these questions, as if anybody really gives a damn! Connie's  _dead!_ " He was shouting now. " _I_  had nothing to do with it!  _Rex_  had nothing to do with it! So just chuck it!" He turned and walked out of the hangar, then spun around, to give the coup de grace.

"And you can tell your little fancy woman to stop spying on us, while you're at it!" Foyle cocked his head and looked at Andrew. He kept his spine perfectly still and spoke without hesitation.

"Don't say that about Sam," he said, very steadily and very softly. "You know better than to call her that."

"Oh, really?" Andrew nearly spat out. "You think I don't know about you and her? You think I don't notice if someone spends the night in our house?" Foyle looked at the ground and put his hands in his pockets. "She did, didn't she?" Andrew asked. But Foyle could not deny it. Sam  _had_  spent the night— _one_ night _,_  he reminded himself—at Steep Lane.  _How in the world does Andrew know about_ _ **that**_ _?_ Foyle wondered. If Sam so much as mentioned it to him, Foyle would be deeply disappointed in her. "You don't know what happened, Andrew," Foyle began. "Sam was bombed out of her flat and needed a place to stay for a while. She stayed with me for a night and then the Reids offered her a room."

"And that's it?" Andrew asked, incredulously. "Dad, I can't believe you're telling me this rubbish! Do you think I'm an idiot?" Foyle cringed at hearing the exact words he had earlier directed at Sam. Andrew continued. "I was going to come home that night, Dad. I was coming up the front steps when I heard voices—yours and Sam's. I decided it would be a lark to surprise you both, so I walked round to the courtyard and was about to come through the back door, when I saw you at the table."

Foyle drew his hand over his face, with the same expression of discomfort that he had made after leaving the interview with Violet earlier that day.

"What did you see?" Foyle asked, not wanting to betray anything, but anxious to know just how much Andrew had witnessed. He tried to recall what had happened at dinner. It was unlikely that Andrew would have heard their conversation all the way from the courtyard. Had he kissed her in the dining room? Foyle couldn't recall.

"You set the table, and then you went back into the kitchen, where Sam was still cooking," Andrew reminded him.

Inwardly, Foyle groaned. Suddenly, he knew what Andrew had seen. He remembered how he had come upon Sam reaching into the cupboard, her arms straining above her head, the nape of her neck damp and glistening from her bath. He had not been able to resist wrapping his arms around her and kissing her as he pressed into her back, and then he had turned her and… oh, God, how much had Andrew seen?

It was one of Foyle's most precious memories of Sam. He could easily remember how she had leaned back into him, welcoming him with her body; how fervently she had responded to his kiss. Now, learning that they had not been alone—that, in fact, what had seemed like their moment of greatest intimacy had been anything but that—Foyle felt as if that memory had been robbed from him.

"So you know," he said matter-of-factly.

"Yep," Andrew said, in unconscious imitation of his father.

"Well, there are a few things you  _don't_  know," Foyle said with irritation.

"Yeah, well, I don't suppose you'd care to tell me?" Andrew asked with sarcasm. "I mean,  _why didn't you just let me know that you wanted to bring her home with you?_  That's what a gentleman does, right? Doesn't take his driver to some out-of-the-way place to make love to her—instead, he does it in the peace and comfort of his own home, when his son's away. That's the advantage of being the Detective Chief Superintendent, isn't it?" His voice went falsetto. " _Yes, sir, anything you say, sir, anywhere you want to go, sir._ "

Foyle visibly winced. "That's not how it is," he said.

"God!" Andrew continued, turning to face his father again. "You act like you're so superior, telling me how I should treat women, and all this time you've been consorting with Sam under all of our noses!"

"That's enough, Andrew," Foyle warned.

"It's always 'enough' when  _you're_  the one who's being investigated, isn't it,  _Dad_?" Andrew replied, drawing out the last word in a bitter huff. "And here you are, acting all high and mighty with me, getting one from your driver on the side—she's not much older than I am, you know—and you have the gall to tell me where I should take Violet on my night off!"

For once, Foyle was speechless. He stared at Andrew, mouth agape. Perhaps his son was right. He really had no idea what went on in Andrew's head.

* * *

Some days later, Foyle sat down to compose a letter. It had taken him nearly all of a sleepless night to make up his mind to write it, but once he was certain of it, the words came easily.

_Dear Andrew:_

_I am writing because I need your help. A young woman is dead, and I still need to know a few things about Connie and Rex before I can finally put the case to rest. I think you can tell me what I need to know. But I am also writing because I owe you an apology, and I hope you will accept it._

_Andrew, you were right. It was none of my business what you were doing with Violet that night. In fact, if it was anyone's business, it was police business, and I should have sent Milner or someone else to interview you in my stead. It was wrong of me to stay involved, once I found out that you were the last one to see Connie alive. No wonder you got angry with me._

_I also don't wonder that you think I'm an old hypocrite, expecting you to tell me about your love affairs, when you've caught me in what looks like a compromising position with my own driver. There's more to that story, and I can explain it better in person, but I'll try to put down a few words here._

_I am not quite as bad as you think I am, and not quite as honorable as I'd like to be, either. Sam and I, we stepped out—if that is what you can even call it—for a short while. There is no excuse for it; you know how very attractive my driver is, but that hardly justifies the fact that she is a subordinate under my command and under my protection. I thought that there was a way to get around all of that, to just allow ourselves to be ourselves, but it can't ever be like that with Sam and me and I should have known better._

_Sam was back to being my driver again—and only my driver—several months ago. I can't allow her to be anything more than that. I don't expect you to understand how I feel about Sam, because (as you so rightly pointed out) I have never talked to you about women before. But I do care about her, deeply, and though it may sound strange to you, the best way I can show that is by not pursuing her. I offered Sam the chance to transfer to another position, but she said she'd rather work here in Hastings. And it was her idea to work at the Bexhill fuel depot, not mine. So now Sam and I are in a rather uncomfortable situation, working together, and I'd prefer it if you didn't mention it to anyone else._

_I'm sorry I didn't tell you all of this sooner, and sorrier still that you had to find out about it on your own and surmise that your father is more of a rake than he is._

_Above all, I am sorriest that neither of us understands each other as well as we might._

— _Your father_

_CF_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Please remember that it was very common at this time for parents to discipline their children using physical punishment. I don't mean to imply that Foyle was a cruel parent; I hope I have conveyed the conflict that he felt at having to discipline Andrew in that way.


	14. Chapter 14

_Dad:_

_Of course I'll help you, in any way I can, not just for Connie's sake, but because I don't want us to keep being angry at each other. I know that I am not an easy person to have as a son, and I suppose I should also say that I am sorry for the things I said to you about Sam. I jumped to conclusions, but you can hardly blame me, can you? I'll wait until we can talk in person to hear the rest of your story. These things are better said in person._

_I hope that Sam is all right here in Hastings. Do look out for her, and don't let her keep poking her nose in other people's business. It's not fair to use her as your spy; there must be others who can do that work for you. She's a nice girl and she deserves better._

_Andrew_

* * *

Sitting at his desk in the station, Foyle read the brief note for the third time that day. He should have known that Andrew would regret his words, once spoken, but it was rare for him to receive such a frank apology from his son. What was more concerning to him was Andrew's advice about Sam. Although Foyle wasn't sure if he meant to say that Sam should stop spying on  _him_  or should just stop spying  _altogether_ , Foyle had to admit that he was having second thoughts about Sam's undercover position at the fuel depot. If Connie's murder was at all related to the missing fuel levels, then Sam could be in quite serious danger if the murderer found out that she had been planted there to keep an eye on things.

Although Foyle frequently had to remind himself that Sam was just his driver, the idea that she could be harmed while on a job—on a job that he had placed her on—was enough to make him want to march right in to Bexhill and pull her out. The only trouble was, he didn't want to blow their cover just yet, and he also didn't know how Sam would react to a sudden removal.  _She would probably think that I don't trust her,_  he thought _, or that she's doing a bad job. Hah! Quite the contrary… she's doing such a good job that I've learned more than I ever would have otherwise, enough to know just how much danger she is in…_

* * *

Foyle was too late.

Even as he re-read Andrew's letter and contemplated removing Sam from Bexhill, Sam was knocking frantically at the door of the main office at the depot, trying to get out. She had managed to open the office safe and steal the requisition orders, but before she could leave the office with the slips, someone had entered. Sam hid under the desk as the stranger deposited a suitcase on the table. By the time she realized that she was locked in, the timer on the bomb was already ticking.

 _It can't be!_  Sam thought.  _Curse it! Another bomb!_

And then,  _I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to die in the middle of a war because of an ordinary criminal. Damn it all!_

Sam did the only thing she could do in this situation. She reached for the telephone and dialed the office number of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle.

* * *

Foyle was about to leave when he got the call.

"What do you mean, you're stuck in the office?" he asked her, scarcely believing what she was telling him.  _A bomb? Again? Sam stuck in the depot office? It sounded like some kind of sick joke, or the plot to an American movie._

"I'm locked in," Sam said breathlessly. "And it looks as if it's going to go off pretty soon!"

"Soon? How soon?"

"Ten minutes, I'd say, Sir."

"Well, get out of a window—break a window!" He knew that she must have already considered her alternatives, or she wouldn't have called him in such a panic, but he desperately wished that there were something else that she could do.

"I'll try," Sam said.

"And if you can't do that, you get behind something solid. Lie flat behind a desk or a table or something…"

"But in case I can't—I want you to know—" Sam started.

He interrupted her brusquely —"I'm on my way!"—then slammed down the phone and went to find Sergeant Thwaites, the constable who liaised with the bomb squad.

Sam did as Foyle had instructed her, pulling over a table and crouching behind it with her hands over her head, waiting for the blast.

She was a bundle of fear and hope. Every minute that passed was another minute closer to the explosion, another minute closer to death. She thought of how long it would take for the police to reach her from the station, and concluded that the drive was probably more than ten minutes. So she would die, then. She would die there in a miserable little office in a minor fuel station outside of Hastings, far from her family and friends, and just minutes away from being rescued by a man who—she could not deny it, could not stand to push him away, even if it was just in her mind—she loved more than any other.

 _Surely ten minutes have passed by now,_ Sam thought.  _Why hasn't it gone off yet?_ It dawned on her that there might still be time. And then she knew that if there  _was_  time, if she wasn't going to die, then it meant that she had to stop pretending that things were all right as they were. She had to be honest with Christopher, even if it meant her being sacked and returning to Lyminster and her parents' home. With the clarity of the dying, Sam saw everything. She saw how afraid they both were of what others would think, and how foolish those fears were. She saw how young she must seem to him, but even as she thought of her youth she realized that she was not an innocent any longer, not now that she was face to face with death and with this terrible, horrible truth that she loved a man who might not love her back and—this was the worst—might not ever know how much she cared for him. She vowed, as she huddled and waited for the bomb to go off, that if she got out of there alive, she would declare herself to him. She would not let any of this foolishness continue.  _If_  she got out alive…

* * *

It seemed to take forever for the bomb disposal officer to break the lock to the office. Foyle silently willed the man to work more quickly, and when the lock finally fell to the floor he was the first to push into the office, her name on his lips.

She ran towards him, then past him, through the open door. He followed right after her, his hand on her back, pushing her as far away from the office and the bomb as possible. The two bomb disposal experts remained behind to defuse the explosive.

Foyle did not want to lose contact with Sam. He moved his hand from her back to her wrist, pulling her along, out to the car park. He could sense her ragged breathing and feel the rapid beat of her pulse; she was afraid, of course she was afraid, Foyle reminded himself. When he finally let her go, in the car park, the abruptness of the separation was heart-wrenching. He was reminded that he very nearly had lost her forever, there in the office. _What a daft, stupid woman!_ he thought to himself.  _Does she have any idea what would have happened—how I would have felt—if she had died?_

His fears at these thoughts were so great that he could only respond with anger.

"What on  _earth_  do you think you were doing?" he asked her, pacing back and forth. "Really!" He hardly dared look at her for fear that he would do something to her, though he hardly knew what. Curse at her? Turn his back on her? Kiss her? All of the options frightened him.

Chastised and ashamed, Sam defended herself as best she could. "I just wanted to get  _these_ ," she said, summoning professional calm and holding out the requisition slips.

"These? What are they?"

"Requisition orders," she said. "They were in the safe." He took them from her and nodded, as if to say  _This is all very well, and you may have got the evidence, but there's no excuse for putting yourself in such danger._

"It was just  _totally_  irresponsible!" he said angrily. "You could have got yourself killed!" Sam cast down her eyes. There was anger in his voice, and something else—fear?

"Well, whoever it was didn't know that  _I_  was in there, Sir," she offered.

"You didn't see anything at all?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not," she said with regret. He looked at her carefully, about to ask her something else, but they were interrupted.

One of the sappers came up to them, carrying the suitcase. He opened it and displayed its contents to them, explaining how the bomb's timer had been faulty. "It should have gone off ten minutes ago, Miss," he said. Foyle thanked the other man curtly, then turned to Sam. As usual, she already had some ideas about who might have planted the bomb (O'Halloran, the Irishman who worked at the depot) and why he might have done so (IRA connections).  _It is so like Sam,_  Foyle thought.  _She has almost been blown up—for the second time—and all that she can think about is work!_

"Are you all right?" he asked her, softly. "Are you all right?" he asked again.

"I think so, Sir," she said. "Look, I'm really sorry." She looked at him hopefully, asking forgiveness.

His anger had passed. Sam was too much like him, he reflected: the work was more important than her own safety, and nothing he could say would convince her otherwise. The only thing he could do was to make sure that she didn't go out as a spy again—that, and insist that she remain by the Wolseley whenever he went into a dangerous situation. But despite these measures, Foyle knew that he could not really protect Sam. It was a dark and violent time, and even when peace came, police work would always be hazardous.  _Hell, even_ _ **living**_ _is hazardous,_ Foyle thought.  _Rosalind…_  The best he could do was to be honest with himself and with Samantha.

He took a deep breath. "Well, not as sorry as I'd have been if you'd been killed," he stated gravely, hoping that she would catch his drift. "The sergeant's a  _terrible_  driver!" he added, with a grin, defusing the seriousness of the situation and allowing her more time to think over his words before she responded to them.

Sam knew what he wanted to say, and she knew why he had followed his admission of concern with a joke; it was too frightening for both of them to contemplate life without the other, and so the fear was swept aside by Foyle's dark humor about needing a better driver. There would be time later to talk about what it all meant, to both of them, but for now they had to get back to the station. There was still a case to solve, after all. And there was still Andrew; Foyle reminded himself to speak with his son the next day.

Sam was relieved to get back to the old routine again. No sooner had she reached the station, than she found one of her spare WTC uniforms and donned it again, swearing to herself that she'd  _never_  where another one-piece jumpsuit again. She hardly saw Foyle for the rest of the day, but she made sure to linger near his office door when it was near closing time, so that he would notice that she was waiting to drive him home.

* * *

Late that evening, Sam and Foyle sat in silence as she drove them back from the station house.

"May I come in, Sir?" Sam ventured when they arrived at Steep Lane. She had never invited herself in before, but then again, she had never been so certain of what she must do.

Foyle looked at her in surprise.

"Sam?" He raised an eyebrow.

"There are things I want to talk about… may I just come in for a few minutes?"

He nodded, then opened his door and made his way up his front steps. Sam, stunned that he had acquiesced, followed him seconds later. He had unlocked the door by the time she climbed the stairs, and he motioned her in.

As she handed her coat to Foyle, Sam felt her breathing quicken in anticipation of what she had come to do. He noticed her heavy breathing and looked at her sharply.

"Sam?" he asked. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes—I mean, no,  _Sir,_  I mean—may I just sit down a moment? I think I shall feel better then." Her face was pale and he feared that she might faint. _No wonder_ , Foyle thought _, she has had quite a shock today._ He put his fingers to his brow in remembrance of the afternoon: the phone call, the mad dash to the depot, the relief at seeing her still alive, the flush of her face as he had ushered her out of the office.  _I have had a shock too,_ he reminded himself.

"May I bring you some tea, Sam?" he asked gently, taking her by the arm and leading her to the living room. She eased herself into an armchair and made to release herself from his grasp, but he held on to her wrist, reluctant to let her go. The light was very low and the room felt small and close.

"Mr. Foyle?" Sam looked up at him, eyes wide with puzzlement.

"I'm sorry," he said, letting her hand go.

"You said—" she began. "You said that you would be sorry if anything had happened to me at the fuel depot…" She trailed off, unable to continue.

"I said that you were not nearly as sorry for your actions as I would be, had you been killed," he corrected her almost sternly. Looking down at her, Foyle noticed how small Sam suddenly looked, how large her eyes were in her wan face.

"Yes," she said, blushing. "But you can't know how sorry I truly am." Her voice was so plaintive, her regret so obvious, that Foyle felt compelled to comfort her. He bent his knees and crouched before her, so that they were at eye level again.

Foyle took both her hands in his. "I know, Sam," he said, looking straight into her eyes.

His gaze was so direct, so searching, that she felt that she must turn her head away, but she willed herself to keep her eyes on his. The weight of his hands on hers was unexpected, to say the least, and she was overcome by his sudden proximity, the scent of his cologne, the expression of concern and love in his eyes. He had looked at her this way before; she remembered when she had noticed it for the first time, that evening when they had dined together at Carlo's. But it had been too long—weeks, perhaps months—since he had looked at her that way. She had feared that he would never look at her that way again.

Sam wished that he would lean forward and kiss her. She longed to do the same to him, but she would not act until she knew how he felt.

Emboldened by his closeness, Sam began the speech she had planned, speaking rapidly and all at once, willing him to remain silent until she was done.

"I know that you know more about some things than I do—and I know that we agreed that I'd go back to being your driver and nothing more, but I _do_  want to be with you—and not as just your driver—and I  _don't_  care what people think—and I don't care how that makes you think of me." She glared at him as he seemed about to speak, then rushed on, afraid that if she stopped she would not be able to resume. "I just know that… I had to say something to you about it, after today. The only thing that I could think of when I was waiting for the bomb to go off was how awful and tragic it would be—how bloody  _sentimental_ , really—if I died and I never got the chance to tell you how much I—" she stumbled on the words. "—How much I _love_  you." She paused. "So there it is."

Sam sat back in the chair, exhaling loudly. She covered her face with her hands, astonished that she had said so much. They sat in silence for half a minute; then Foyle spoke.

"Sam?" he asked, gently. "Sam?" He began to pry her fingers away from her face, but she kept her eyes firmly closed, as if she could ignore him because she could not see him. "Sam, look at me," he pleaded. She opened her eyes and he saw that she was on the verge of crying.

"Samantha," he said. "We—I need—what I mean to say is—we need to talk." He released her and rocked back on his heels. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then looked away from him, ashamed to catch his eyes.

"No," she said softly. "I've said what I came here to say." She stood and began to walk, but he caught her shoulders and led her back to the chair.

"You haven't let me answer you," he said, taking a deep breath. "Sam, I—I know how you feel. And please be assured that I never wanted any harm to come to you. Not as my driver, not as my friend, and not as my—"

Foyle stopped suddenly, as if he had said too much. She was looking at him with curiosity and he was tempted to say what was in his mind, but he held himself back.  _Because I don't_ _ **know**_ _what's in my mind,_  he thought.  _I don't know what she would think if I called her my girl, or my lover, or my wife. And I never thought we'd be having this conversation. But—God, I want her. However she'll have me._

"Sir?" she asked, sensing that she was losing him to his reverie.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't know where to begin." He smiled at her, and when she saw his face she knew that things would be right between them again.

"You could begin by telling me that I didn't make a royal fool of myself just now!" she exclaimed.

"No, not a fool. Not  _that_ , Sam," he joked. "Stubborn, and capricious, and altogether too knowledgeable for your own good—but not a fool. I know you're waiting for me to tell you what I think."

"Yes," she said. He peered at her, almost sternly. How could she seem even more beautiful now, with tears still wet on her cheeks, than he had ever seen her before? He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he knew that it was more important to say the words first.

"I can't lose you again," he began.

"Wha—?" she started, confused by his meaning.

"I can't risk losing you again, not to a bomb, not to your parents, not to a transfer. And certainly not to another man." He stood and turned away from her, moving towards the sideboard. She remembered the first time they had shared an evening in that room, and how he had moved towards the same sideboard when she had first confessed to feeling something more for him. He had been overcome with emotion then, even as he seemed to be now. Sam understood, with new tenderness, that he was turning away not because he wanted to leave her, but because he was so unaccustomed to stating his feelings outright.  _This is difficult for him to say_ , she thought.  _He's—he's actually nervous!_

"Sam, I need you to know some things about me. Before I say anything more. And certainly before you agree to something you shouldn't agree to, if you don't know me as well as you ought."

"Yes?" Now she was smiling up at him, with that expression that seemed to say,  _You ninny! Get on with it!_

"Remember how I went ahead and investigated Andrew, after Connie died? And how I learned—I know you didn't want to tell me, but it didn't matter, Sam, I would have learned it anyway—I learned about him stepping out with Violet?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"And did you know that I scolded him for not treating her better? For taking her to some run-down hotel, as if she were cheap? She thought he was going to marry her."

"Yes, she mentioned it to me," Sam said. Then she added hastily, "The part about marrying Andrew, I mean."

"Well, I'm sure the other part isn't too much of a surprise. You know what Andrew is like. You know it, and I know it, and I've never liked it, myself, how he treats women. But that's not the point. The point is, he accused me of being a hypocrite—not in so many words, but he told me that he had seen something between the two of us."

"He  _saw_  something?" Sam asked, her mouth agape.

"Yes. That night you stayed here. He was coming home—I didn't know he was on leave, of course, or I wouldn't have invited you here, I would have thought of some other thing—"

"There's always the Reids'," Sam said under her breath.

"—but yes, Sam, he did see something. He was passing through the courtyard, coming around to the back door, and he looked through the window and saw us. In the kitchen. You were drying the dishes and I came up and—"

"Stop!" Sam said. "I know what he saw!" Her expression was doleful. "What did he say?"

"He implied that I was abusing my position as your superior officer."

"The nerve!" she said. "Did you explain to him?"

"I tried to; of course I tried to explain. But he didn't believe me, not at first. I think he's come around now—we've had several letters back and forth, he's still up at the base, but I think things will be all right."

"What else did he say?" Sam asked.

"He said that you deserved better." He looked at her from across the room. "And you  _do_  deserve better, Sam. You deserve better than to be working for the man you're in love with when he doesn't have the courage to declare himself to you."

For once, Sam didn't know what to say.  _Is he about to propose?_  she asked herself.  _Or was_ _ **that**_ _the proposal? Did I miss something?_  She could hear the rise and fall of her breath as she nervously picked at a loose thread on her uniform.

"I'm sorry to be so thick, but could you tell me exactly what you mean?"

"I mean—" he moved away from the sideboard, stepping towards her again. He knelt beside her and gathered her hands in his. "I mean, Samantha Stewart, that I love you, and I  _will_  marry you." He looked up at her.

"Oh!" murmured Samantha, shocked despite her premonitions. She hadn't known that a proposal would sound like  _this._  But she knew what she would do, though she didn't know what he would think of her response.

She leaned down, as slowly as she could manage, and kissed his lips. Then she pulled away and sat back up.

"Thank you for that," she said.

"For what?" he asked. He wanted to kiss her again, and again, and he wanted to keep her right there in his house, forever and ever. He wanted her to say yes.

"For saying that you want to marry me."

"Yes, yes, I  _do_!" he said emphatically. "But when? How soon, do you think?"

"Well, you haven't exactly asked me, have you?"

He looked at her, startled, not quite understanding. "What—because I said—"

"You said that  _you_  will marry  _me_. But you didn't ask me, not outright." He opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off, with surprising speed, with a kiss. Pulling away, she whispered, "Don't say anymore."

"Sam—I'm sorr—"

"Shhh. I'm not upset. Just—don't say it. Don't say anything." She kissed him more deeply, passionately, sucking at his lips and pulling at his tongue. She wasn't about to let him stop her, either. Softly she chanted, "Just—kiss me. Christopher. Christopher. Christopher. Kiss me. Yes. Yes. Yes, that's it…"

His hand was in her hair, loosening her pins. She felt the release of tension as her scalp tingled and her locks came loose. He used his hands to keep her in place, to pin her down and let him kiss her back with the same intensity with which she had kissed him.

They had kissed before, and every time had been delicious, but this time was different. Sam knew why—it was different because, this time, they weren't going to stop. This time she was going to urge him on until he lost his senses and took her, there on the rug or on the settee. She could sense the urgency in him and was certain that he wouldn't end things early this time. Yet there were still those compunctions of his…those pesky "principles."

But Sam had been embarrassed enough for one evening. She wasn't going to let herself be turned down by Christopher Foyle again; there wasn't time for such nonsense. There was a war on, and criminals all around them, it seemed, and more men than she could count had already died, and more would die, and it was all just so meaningless and futile. All of it was, except  _this._  Except for Christopher, who had now pulled her down from the chair to lie on top of him on the floor, continuing their kisses.

Foyle glanced around, and she realised that he was looking for the quilt that had covered the settee. Grabbing it before he had the chance, she spread it beside them and helped him to roll onto it.

"I want you," she said, between kisses. Her boss murmured her name in assent. She began to loosen the knot at her tie. His eyes widened and she hushed him, whispering, "I'm just making myself more comfortable—I can hardly breathe," before loosening  _his_  tie. And then she was— _No, she can't be,_  Foyle thought. But she was. Sam was undressing, working first at the large buttons on her jacket. Her voice appeared to have dropped an octave as she excused herself: "This thing is terribly thick, don't you think?" Without much ado she flung the jacket aside, then reached up to open the top button of her blouse. "I'm still feeling a bit warm." Foyle grasped her hands but she turned away, pinning him with her knees and sitting down on him more firmly.

And then she felt his arousal, right under her bum. She almost jumped up in surprise until she realized what she was feeling and reminded herself not to panic.  _When did_ _ **that**_ _happen?_  She thought.  _Just now? While we were kissing?_

And then they were kissing again, and she lay back down upon him, the weight of her entire body on his, and she still could feel him hard against her. But this time he was right at the join in her legs, and she could imagine what would happen if she just lifted her skirt, yes, just a little. And removed her blouse, like this.  _Would he like that?_

He did like that. He very much liked the sight of Samantha Stewart in her brassiere and skirt, sitting on top of him. He liked it so much that he did not protest, either, when she sat back down again, rubbing not-so-demurely against him with her silk knickers, her skirt bunched up around her hips.

By this time he—or was it Sam?—had removed his shirt, and she was playing with the hair on his chest, and he was moaning, and it was too late to do anything, too late at all. Even if he had wanted to act, he knew that he was done for.

Sam's brassiere was the next garment to go. Her nipples caught the dim light of the room and he wanted to touch her, God, how he wanted to touch. She hesitated a second before bringing his hands up to cup her breasts. She knew what would happen next, knew that he was supposed to feel her and she was supposed to feel him back. And it all felt  _so good_ , and she couldn't believe that she hadn't tried this before, this touching and sucking and cooing and—what was  _that_? Was that his hand, creeping  _up and under_  her skirt? Cupping her rear, grazing softly over the roundest part, then moving fabric aside and reaching up to unfasten her skirt— _How does he know how to do that?_ —and pushing her up, urging her to stand so that he could pull the skirt down and off of her.

Now. Now she was back on top of him, recklessly kissing his face, his cheeks, his neck, burying herself in his hair, smelling him and feeling him and tasting him and  _hearing_  him. Yes, she was  _hearing_  him: the racing pulse in his chest, the sharp breaths, the little gasps he gave as she took his ear in her mouth and delicately traced its edge. He was crying out now, crying her name and grabbing her hips and now he wanted her. She noticed another difference about this time. He had committed himself to this, committed himself to her. She knew it was too late for him to say no, too late for him to push her off and send her away.

Now there was no turning back.

Sam fumbled at her suspender belt, releasing nylon from the clips. She stood up again to take off her knickers, facing away from Foyle. All he could see were the round curves of her bottom as she slid her stockings down, then turned to join him again on the floor, deliberately sitting back from him so that he could not touch her as she helped him out of his trousers and his pants.

Sam braced her hands on his chest and pushed him to the floor again.

She was never sure how she managed the next part all by herself.

Foyle lay back on the quilt and followed Sam's movements with his gaze. He could not tear his eyes from her. Now she was coming closer—another kiss—and now she was lifting her hips, and he could see the dark patch between her legs. She put one hand there, touching herself, and then she was touching him, and he could feel that her fingers were moist on his penis, and he almost came right there, with this headstrong virgin playing at him with her hands. He almost came but he didn't, because he had accepted that  _she_  was seducing  _him_ , and really, it was much more enjoyable to watch her do these things, to see how her expression changed when she figured out something. For instance, the look on her face when she touched herself and her fingers came out wet and he knew that she was in awe because for the first time she understood why that wetness was there; and when she looked down at him and touched his penis again and it was easier, this time, to pull gently at it, to grip it by the head and squeeze and squeeze and then—

"Sam!" he gasped. "Stop!" He grasped her waist and, before she could protest, before she even understood what he was about to do, he had rolled her over and was kissing at her breasts and then down to her navel. And then he was kissing further, and she really could not keep back a scream then, or maybe it was just a cry, and Samantha Stewart would never remember what kind of noise she made because he was licking and nipping and kissing her, right there between the legs, where no man in his right mind would ever, ever want to go—at least, this is what she had thought before, when she had thought about this at all, before her mind had told her to stop  _those_  kinds of thoughts, after all she was a  _vicar's_  daughter—but her lover  _was_  there. And it felt glorious. Just glorious. As if she were being stretched out and put together again and all of the nerves in her body were moving, moving, moving towards that one spot between her legs, which had become the only place in the entire universe. And best of all, it was _Foyle_  who was doing this to her, Foyle the man she loved, Foyle the man she—

Sam Stewart could not think anymore. She could only feel, and it was  _good._  And then, it was over, the waves tumbling through her and away from her and Samantha felt so calm and so certain that this was not just  _good_  but it was  _right_  and it was  _wholesome_  and  _how could she have ever thought differently?_

He heard her cry out again, a deeper, throatier cry, almost as if she were in pain, and he eased the pressure so that she could come down easily. Her cries turned into yips and then she panted his name and grabbed feebly at his hair. When he moved up beside her to kiss her mouth and his fingers explored her, she still pulsed from her climax. He spread her lips apart and allowed himself in.

Now, this was interesting. This was very, very interesting. Sam could feel herself stretching to accommodate his penis. She needed to move too, she realized. If she just lifted her hips a little, then he would be— _there_. There he was, fully inside her, and she noticed that it did not feel strange, just unfamiliar. It felt as if she had been waiting for this without even knowing that she was lacking it. And then he was moving inside her, he was actually moving… it was really happening. His arms were around her and she thought she should put hers around him too, so she did, and then she could not stop trying to bring him into her deeper and deeper. She wrapped her legs around his back in a tight embrace, but in that position she couldn't move as well, so she lowered her legs and lifted her hips again, pushing towards him.

At first their rhythm was irregular, but still Sam kept pushing, until Foyle grabbed her and forced her still. He moved inside her with slow and regular strokes, making sure that she could anticipate his motions, until he released her and let her join in the dance. She felt thrilled to think that she was surrounding him, and she kept reminding herself that he was in her, he was actually  _inside her_ , and she, Samantha Jane Stewart, was no longer a virgin, in fact she had done any number of things and had let him do things to her that no virgin would  _ever_  do, and even though she was spent from his kisses, she liked this part, too. She liked seeing the sweat form on his brow as he concentrated on his movements and on her position underneath him. She liked knowing that she was giving him pleasure, as he had given it to her. She liked the way he said her name, over and over again, as he built up to his orgasm, and she liked the way he stroked her hair when it was all done. Except it wasn't done, because he'd said that he wanted to marry her, and even though she had thought she wouldn't know what to say, now she had a better idea of what marriage could be like, with him, and perhaps it was something that she might want, after all.

"Christopher?" she said groggily, as he rested his face in her neck afterwards.

"Yes, my love?" he asked. He was still inside her and he was worried, now, about the mess and about Sam and about the consequences, yes,  _those_ consequences, they hadn't used any of those  _methods,_  and she still had not said if she would have him or not…

"I think we need to do this again."

"Er—"

"Otherwise, there's no way to be sure."

"To be sure?" he asked, raising his head and furrowing his brow slightly.

"Yes, silly." She kissed his nose. "I mean, this was my first time, after all. No way to be sure if it's a fluke."

He gaped at her.

"Maybe it doesn't happen all the time," she continued. He stared at her quizzically.

"What doesn't?"

"You know…." She wriggled purposefully underneath him. "That thing that happened, when you kissed me— _there._ " She waved in the general direction of her hips.

"You think that was a  _fluke_?" he asked, astonished.

"There's only one way to find out," she said mischievously.

"What will I do with you, Samantha Stewart?" he responded.

"Marry me," she said.

"You will?" he asked.

"No, you goose.  _You_  will marry  _me_. Isn't that what you said earlier?"

"Rrright." He sighed.

"How soon?"

"Err—hadn't really—next month?"

"No, I mean,  _how soon can we do this again?_ " She laughed at his expression.

"As soon as you'll let me accompany you to the bedroom," he said urbanely, standing with her.

"After you," she said.

"No, my darling," he said, bowing to kiss her hand. "After  _you._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am leaving room for the possibility of an epilogue here, but given how long it has taken me to get down to writing this chapter, I can't promise that I'll add much more at this point. So I'm posting the story as "complete". Hope that you enjoyed it! It has been wonderful for me to write it. I feel like I've learned a lot as a writer over the course of this saga, and I especially want to thank my friends and readers Treva Rea and Dancesabove (the best editor out there!).
> 
> Foyle's War is only the second canon that I have written for-the first one, Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, takes place in quite a different era, with a different style. I find it has been easier to write a continuation of a TV series (like Foyle's War) than a book (like W&D), because so much of the physical descriptions of the characters, as well as their mannerisms and expressions, have already been conveyed through the medium of television. You readers know what I mean when I say that Foyle's mouth twitches, or that Sam has a cheery disposition, or that he sounds stern when talking to Andrew, because the show's writer, director, and actors have made them that way. Though I understand some people's reluctance to see the characters stray too far from the canon, I have found it delightful to see how far I can stretch the characters' thoughts and behaviors without making them unrecognizable. I love "filling in the blanks" and painting the little, ordinary scenes of their lives, as well as imagining the grand love affair between Foyle and Sam that we never saw on television. And I persist in thinking that, if viewers see some kind of tension between the two on the screen, then it really must be there, even if Horowitz denies it. A work of art always goes beyond the intentions of its creator, because every person who contemplates it brings his or her own experiences to bear in its interpretation (look up "intentional fallacy" or "intention and semiotics" on Wikipedia to read more about this idea, which is not my own but with which I very much agree!). I think that the Sam/Foyle pairing has been so popular, in part, because there are hints of sexual tension between the two characters in television, but also because they fit the literary trope of the older, experienced man and the younger, innocent but still eager, woman. We have seen a similar relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre); John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson (Bleak House); Jo March and Professor Baehr (Little Women); among others. While I am tempted to refer to Freud and the Elektra complex, or to evolutionary psychology, regardless of how May-December romances come about, the fact is that many readers are intrigued by this trope. Fan fiction is one way for me to explore my own interest in this particular kind of relationship, without being compelled to enter into a May-December romance myself! (Besides, Michael Kitchen seems to be very happily partnered himself, and is an ocean away in jolly old England).
> 
> In writing a fiction based on television, I also feel less bound to write in any one style, because there is no written text to base my writing on anyway. But this section here has been difficult for me nonetheless, in part because the more I wrote about Sam and Foyle together, the more conflicted their relationship seemed to become. I became more aware of the characters' own limitations—Foyle's emotional restriction, Sam's impulsiveness—and how they would impact any relationship that they could have together. Nevertheless, I still think that it is possible, even if many viewers of FW would shudder at the idea of a 50+ year old man with a much younger woman. I have been reading other works of fiction that take place in the 1940s and they are certainly frank in talking about people's sex lives, reminding me that in every era there were people who bucked against society's conventions. And I think that wartime has always been a sort of liminal time, when rules are broken because they don't seem so important anymore when death is constantly looming in the background.
> 
> That said, I have been thinking a lot about why I take the trouble to write these kinds of fics, when I remind myself that my time might be (better?) spent working on my dissertation or reading more "serious" fiction. I think that there are many things that draw me to fan fiction, but most of all I find that I get so caught up in the characters' love affairs that I almost feel as if I were also falling in love! That's a delightful, vicarious pleasure, one that I am happy to prolong by reading and writing fan fiction.


End file.
